Do What You LoveTony Hawk - San Diego, California
As heard on All Things Considered, July 24, 2006Tony Hawk has turned what many consider a childhood activity into a professional career. Now for Hawk, skateboarding is not only a job, it’s a means of expression and a foundation for personal belief.
Age Group: 30 - 50
Themes: creativity, family, work
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Sponsor This EssayI believe that people should take pride in what they do, even if it is scorned or misunderstood by the public at large.
I have been a professional skateboarder for 24 years. For much of that time, the activity that paid my rent and gave me my greatest joy was tagged with many labels, most of which were ugly. It was a kids’ fad, a waste of time, a dangerous pursuit, a crime.
When I was about 17, three years after I turned pro, my high school “careers” teacher scolded me in front of the entire class about jumping ahead in my workbook. He told me that I would never make it in the workplace if I didn’t follow directions explicitly. He said I’d never make a living as a skateboarder, so it seemed to him that my future was bleak.
Even during those dark years, I never stopped riding my skateboard and never stopped progressing as a skater. There have been many, many times when I’ve been frustrated because I can’t land a maneuver. I’ve come to realize that the only way to master something is to keep it at — despite the bloody knees, despite the twisted ankles, despite the mocking crowds.
Skateboarding has gained mainstream recognition in recent years, but it still has negative stereotypes. The pro skaters I know are responsible members of society. Many of them are fathers, homeowners, world travelers and successful entrepreneurs. Their hairdos and tattoos are simply part of our culture, even when they raise eyebrows during PTA meetings.
So here I am, 38 years old, a husband and father of three, with a lengthy list of responsibilities and obligations. And although I have many job titles — CEO, Executive Producer, Senior Consultant, Foundation Chairman, Bad Actor — the one I am most proud of is “Professional Skateboarder.” It’s the one I write on surveys and customs forms, even though I often end up in a secondary security checkpoint.
My youngest son’s pre-school class was recently asked what their dads do for work. The responses were things like, “My dad sells money” and “My dad figures stuff out.” My son said, “I’ve never seen my dad do work.”
It’s true. Skateboarding doesn’t seem like real work, but I’m proud of what I do. My parents never once questioned the practicality behind my passion, even when I had to scrape together gas money and regarded dinner at Taco Bell as a big night out.
I hope to pass on the same lesson to my children someday. Find the thing you love. My oldest son is an avid skater and he’s really gifted for a 13-year-old, but there’s a lot of pressure on him. He used to skate for endorsements, but now he brushes all that stuff aside. He just skates for fun and that’s good enough for me.
You might not make it to the top, but if you are doing what you love, there is much more happiness there than being rich or famous.
Tony Hawk got his first skateboard when he was nine years old. Five years later, he turned pro. Hawk’s autobiography and video games have been best-sellers, while his foundation has funded skate-park construction in low-income communities across America.
Independently produced for NPR by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with Emily Botein, John Gregory and Viki Merrick.
As heard on All Things Considered, July 24, 2006Tony Hawk has turned what many consider a childhood activity into a professional career. Now for Hawk, skateboarding is not only a job, it’s a means of expression and a foundation for personal belief.
Age Group: 30 - 50
Themes: creativity, family, work
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00:00
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Sponsor This EssayI believe that people should take pride in what they do, even if it is scorned or misunderstood by the public at large.
I have been a professional skateboarder for 24 years. For much of that time, the activity that paid my rent and gave me my greatest joy was tagged with many labels, most of which were ugly. It was a kids’ fad, a waste of time, a dangerous pursuit, a crime.
When I was about 17, three years after I turned pro, my high school “careers” teacher scolded me in front of the entire class about jumping ahead in my workbook. He told me that I would never make it in the workplace if I didn’t follow directions explicitly. He said I’d never make a living as a skateboarder, so it seemed to him that my future was bleak.
Even during those dark years, I never stopped riding my skateboard and never stopped progressing as a skater. There have been many, many times when I’ve been frustrated because I can’t land a maneuver. I’ve come to realize that the only way to master something is to keep it at — despite the bloody knees, despite the twisted ankles, despite the mocking crowds.
Skateboarding has gained mainstream recognition in recent years, but it still has negative stereotypes. The pro skaters I know are responsible members of society. Many of them are fathers, homeowners, world travelers and successful entrepreneurs. Their hairdos and tattoos are simply part of our culture, even when they raise eyebrows during PTA meetings.
So here I am, 38 years old, a husband and father of three, with a lengthy list of responsibilities and obligations. And although I have many job titles — CEO, Executive Producer, Senior Consultant, Foundation Chairman, Bad Actor — the one I am most proud of is “Professional Skateboarder.” It’s the one I write on surveys and customs forms, even though I often end up in a secondary security checkpoint.
My youngest son’s pre-school class was recently asked what their dads do for work. The responses were things like, “My dad sells money” and “My dad figures stuff out.” My son said, “I’ve never seen my dad do work.”
It’s true. Skateboarding doesn’t seem like real work, but I’m proud of what I do. My parents never once questioned the practicality behind my passion, even when I had to scrape together gas money and regarded dinner at Taco Bell as a big night out.
I hope to pass on the same lesson to my children someday. Find the thing you love. My oldest son is an avid skater and he’s really gifted for a 13-year-old, but there’s a lot of pressure on him. He used to skate for endorsements, but now he brushes all that stuff aside. He just skates for fun and that’s good enough for me.
You might not make it to the top, but if you are doing what you love, there is much more happiness there than being rich or famous.
Tony Hawk got his first skateboard when he was nine years old. Five years later, he turned pro. Hawk’s autobiography and video games have been best-sellers, while his foundation has funded skate-park construction in low-income communities across America.
Independently produced for NPR by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with Emily Botein, John Gregory and Viki Merrick.
The Making of PoemsGregory Orr - Charlottesville, Virginia
As heard on This I Believe Podcast, April 14, 2014
Photo by Nubar AlexanianA series of tragedies during his youth left Gregory Orr confused and disillusioned. Now, the University of Virginia professor believes poetry – and the making of poems – has helped him live and heal.
Age Group: 50 - 65
Themes: creativity, death
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Sponsor This EssayI believe in poetry as a way of surviving the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions and traumatic events that come with being alive.
When I was 12 years old, I was responsible for the death of my younger brother in a hunting accident. I held the rifle that killed him. In a single moment, my world changed forever. I felt grief, terror, shame and despair more deeply than I could ever have imagined. In the aftermath, no one in my shattered family could speak to me about my brother’s death, and their silence left me alone with all my agonizing emotions. And under those emotions, something even more terrible: a knowledge that all the easy meanings I had lived by until then had been suddenly and utterly abolished.
One consequence of traumatic violence is that it isolates its victims. It can cut us off from other people, cutting us off from their own emotional lives until we go numb and move through the world as if only half alive. As a young person, I found something to set against my growing sense of isolation and numbness: the making of poems.
When I write a poem, I process experience. I take what’s inside me — the raw, chaotic material of feeling or memory — and translate it into words and then shape those words into the rhythmical language we call a poem. This process brings me a kind of wild joy. Before I was powerless and passive in the face of my confusion, but now I am active: the powerful shaper of my experience. I am transforming it into a lucid meaning.
Because poems are meanings, even the saddest poem I write is proof that I want to survive. And therefore it represents an affirmation of life in all its complexities and contradictions.
An additional miracle comes to me as the maker of poems: Because poems can be shared between poet and audience, they also become a further triumph over human isolation.
Whenever I read a poem that moves me, I know I’m not alone in the world. I feel a connection to the person who wrote it, knowing that he or she has gone through something similar to what I’ve experienced, or felt something like what I have felt. And their poem gives me hope and courage, because I know that they survived, that their life force was strong enough to turn experience into words and shape it into meaning and then bring it toward me to share. The gift of their poem enters deeply into me and helps me live and believe in living.
Gregory Orr has taught at the University of Virginia since 1975, where he is Professor of English. He is the author of nine collections of poetry and is the recipient of National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim fellowships. Orr lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife, the painter Trisha Orr.
Independently produced for This I Believe by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick.
As heard on This I Believe Podcast, April 14, 2014
Photo by Nubar AlexanianA series of tragedies during his youth left Gregory Orr confused and disillusioned. Now, the University of Virginia professor believes poetry – and the making of poems – has helped him live and heal.
Age Group: 50 - 65
Themes: creativity, death
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00:00
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Sponsor This EssayI believe in poetry as a way of surviving the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions and traumatic events that come with being alive.
When I was 12 years old, I was responsible for the death of my younger brother in a hunting accident. I held the rifle that killed him. In a single moment, my world changed forever. I felt grief, terror, shame and despair more deeply than I could ever have imagined. In the aftermath, no one in my shattered family could speak to me about my brother’s death, and their silence left me alone with all my agonizing emotions. And under those emotions, something even more terrible: a knowledge that all the easy meanings I had lived by until then had been suddenly and utterly abolished.
One consequence of traumatic violence is that it isolates its victims. It can cut us off from other people, cutting us off from their own emotional lives until we go numb and move through the world as if only half alive. As a young person, I found something to set against my growing sense of isolation and numbness: the making of poems.
When I write a poem, I process experience. I take what’s inside me — the raw, chaotic material of feeling or memory — and translate it into words and then shape those words into the rhythmical language we call a poem. This process brings me a kind of wild joy. Before I was powerless and passive in the face of my confusion, but now I am active: the powerful shaper of my experience. I am transforming it into a lucid meaning.
Because poems are meanings, even the saddest poem I write is proof that I want to survive. And therefore it represents an affirmation of life in all its complexities and contradictions.
An additional miracle comes to me as the maker of poems: Because poems can be shared between poet and audience, they also become a further triumph over human isolation.
Whenever I read a poem that moves me, I know I’m not alone in the world. I feel a connection to the person who wrote it, knowing that he or she has gone through something similar to what I’ve experienced, or felt something like what I have felt. And their poem gives me hope and courage, because I know that they survived, that their life force was strong enough to turn experience into words and shape it into meaning and then bring it toward me to share. The gift of their poem enters deeply into me and helps me live and believe in living.
Gregory Orr has taught at the University of Virginia since 1975, where he is Professor of English. He is the author of nine collections of poetry and is the recipient of National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim fellowships. Orr lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife, the painter Trisha Orr.
Independently produced for This I Believe by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick.
Creative Solutions To Life’s ChallengesFrank X Walker - Lexington, Kentucky
As heard on The Bob Edwards Show, March 17, 2014
Photo by Tracy A. HawkinsPoet Frank X Walker believes artists aren’t the only creative people. He says barbers, cooks, janitors, and kids enrich the world with their creativity as much as the painters, sculptors, and writers.
Age Group: 30 - 50
Themes: creativity, family, purpose
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Sponsor This EssayI believe that what we often call survival skills is simply creativity at work.
When I think about how my mother fed all seven of us, making us think that every day was a “different meal,” I still appreciate how much a creative cook can do with a single potato.
And it wasn’t just in the kitchen. She would flip her old Singer sewing machine upright, study pictures in books and magazines, then make ethnic versions of those same dolls and stuffed animals to sell at church fundraisers. Without a TV in the house to distract us, we made the dolls come to life, filling the hollow fabric sleeves one fistful of cotton at a time.
My mother made her own clothes and all my sisters’ prom and wedding dresses. I always knew when she was making something, because she would be singing or humming. She sang all the way through her home correspondence courses in floral design and interior decorating. She made being creative as normal as breathing and encouraged our participation by telling us that “idle hands and minds were the devil’s workshop.”
I believe that happy children are those given the freedom to be expressive, to discover, to create their own “refrigerator-door” masterpieces. I remember mixing tempera paints with powdered detergent and painting the Baskin-Robbins windows every Christmas season. Not for money, but for all the ice cream I could eat. And every time I saw people look up at the window and smile, I knew I was getting the best part of the deal.
I believe that the highest quality of life is full of art and creative expression and that all people deserve it. I believe in a broad definition of what art is and who artists are: barbers, cooks, auto detailers, janitors, and gardeners have as much right to claims of artistry as designers, architects, painters, and sculptors. Every day, our streets and school buses become art galleries in the form of perfectly spiked hair, zigzagging cornrows, and dizzying shoelace artistry.
My first collection of art was a milk crate full of comic books. I survived the projects and my teenage years inspired by my favorite character, the Black Panther, who had only his mind and no superpowers, and Luke Cage, the thick-skinned, inner-city Hero for Hire. By the time my “bookish” reputation and thick glasses became a target for the neighborhood bullies, I responded by composing juvenile but truly “heroic” rhyming couplets in my head.
Ever since high school, words have continued to serve as my first weapon of choice and my salvation. Many of life’s challenges need creative solutions. I believe creativity—in all its many forms—can change the way we think and operate. Celebrating the creativity around us helps maintain our sanity and keeps us happy.
Frank X Walker is the author of four collections of poetry and was awarded a prestigious Lannan Literary Fellowship in 2005. Walker serves as Writer in Residence and lecturer of English at Northern Kentucky University and is the proud editor and publisher of PLUCK!, the new Journal of Affrilachian Art & Culture. Walker was appointed to serve as Kentucky Poet Laureate for 2013–2014.
Independently produced for NPR by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with Emily Botein, John Gregory and Viki Merrick.
As heard on The Bob Edwards Show, March 17, 2014
Photo by Tracy A. HawkinsPoet Frank X Walker believes artists aren’t the only creative people. He says barbers, cooks, janitors, and kids enrich the world with their creativity as much as the painters, sculptors, and writers.
Age Group: 30 - 50
Themes: creativity, family, purpose
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00:00
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Sponsor This EssayI believe that what we often call survival skills is simply creativity at work.
When I think about how my mother fed all seven of us, making us think that every day was a “different meal,” I still appreciate how much a creative cook can do with a single potato.
And it wasn’t just in the kitchen. She would flip her old Singer sewing machine upright, study pictures in books and magazines, then make ethnic versions of those same dolls and stuffed animals to sell at church fundraisers. Without a TV in the house to distract us, we made the dolls come to life, filling the hollow fabric sleeves one fistful of cotton at a time.
My mother made her own clothes and all my sisters’ prom and wedding dresses. I always knew when she was making something, because she would be singing or humming. She sang all the way through her home correspondence courses in floral design and interior decorating. She made being creative as normal as breathing and encouraged our participation by telling us that “idle hands and minds were the devil’s workshop.”
I believe that happy children are those given the freedom to be expressive, to discover, to create their own “refrigerator-door” masterpieces. I remember mixing tempera paints with powdered detergent and painting the Baskin-Robbins windows every Christmas season. Not for money, but for all the ice cream I could eat. And every time I saw people look up at the window and smile, I knew I was getting the best part of the deal.
I believe that the highest quality of life is full of art and creative expression and that all people deserve it. I believe in a broad definition of what art is and who artists are: barbers, cooks, auto detailers, janitors, and gardeners have as much right to claims of artistry as designers, architects, painters, and sculptors. Every day, our streets and school buses become art galleries in the form of perfectly spiked hair, zigzagging cornrows, and dizzying shoelace artistry.
My first collection of art was a milk crate full of comic books. I survived the projects and my teenage years inspired by my favorite character, the Black Panther, who had only his mind and no superpowers, and Luke Cage, the thick-skinned, inner-city Hero for Hire. By the time my “bookish” reputation and thick glasses became a target for the neighborhood bullies, I responded by composing juvenile but truly “heroic” rhyming couplets in my head.
Ever since high school, words have continued to serve as my first weapon of choice and my salvation. Many of life’s challenges need creative solutions. I believe creativity—in all its many forms—can change the way we think and operate. Celebrating the creativity around us helps maintain our sanity and keeps us happy.
Frank X Walker is the author of four collections of poetry and was awarded a prestigious Lannan Literary Fellowship in 2005. Walker serves as Writer in Residence and lecturer of English at Northern Kentucky University and is the proud editor and publisher of PLUCK!, the new Journal of Affrilachian Art & Culture. Walker was appointed to serve as Kentucky Poet Laureate for 2013–2014.
Independently produced for NPR by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with Emily Botein, John Gregory and Viki Merrick.
The Power of MusicJoyce Parry-Moore - Livermore, California
As heard on The Bob Edwards Show, August 9, 2013Around the time Joyce Parry-Moore was faced with a diagnosis of breast cancer, she also had an opportunity to sing the Verdi Requiem with the Juneau Symphony. Ms. Parry-Moore now believes in the healing power of the music and that moment.
Age Group: 30 - 50
Themes: creativity, illness
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Sponsor This EssayI believe in the healing power of music. I’m a singer. As long as I can remember, I’ve understood the way that singing sets my body to vibrating and puts me at one with the universe. But never have I been as aware as two weeks ago, gratefully singing with the Juneau Symphony the soaring melodies of the Verdi Requiem.
It was a moment I’d dreamed of for many years, to solo in that amazing work. But only a Creator full of divine imagination could have dreamt the journey that would lead me to it in the frontiers of Alaska. Imagine: after years of discipline and sacrifice developing a singing career, to suddenly have my heart cracked open through the simultaneous fires of breast cancer and Guiseppi Verdi. Who knew?
There is a tendency to assume that, when facing a serious illness, one must strive for constant peace and contemplation. Although this is a great ideal, you know, sometimes you just feel lousy and you want to scream your fool head off! And that is Sacred too. I remember when, as a passionate teenager trapped in the banality of suburbia, the only place within my Judeo-Christian tradition that could adequately express my range of emotions were the Psalms, full of angst and so flat-out human that I felt safe in them. It’s that way with Verdi’s Requiem: along with moments of complete beauty and transcendence, he gives us aggressive rhythms that express the more raw parts of our experience. His music—all great music—is not simply a lovely diversion. It is a physical Force in the world, capable of doing great good.
I’ve been through a few things physically—having borne two children, and raised five, broken my back (literally) as well as my heart, and now am entering the surreal journey of chemo-therapy. But so far nothing quite equals the experience I had on that Sunday afternoon, singing the “Libera Me”: percussion reverberating into my bones, the breath of a hundred chorus members pouring into my back, the vibrations of each instrument rocking me forward like a great wind. Awake and alive, I flew on the combined desire of dozens of friends, colleagues and loved ones, at once privately and publicly at Peace.
Yes, I will undergo the rigors of my treatment, and like so many other, braver women before me have successfully done, will emerge stronger, more Real. But truth is: I’ve already been healed. For I believe this: no cancer cell could have possibly withstood the power of that moment we all shared. The rightness of that great music has re-aligned my being, and I’m good to go.
The Rev. Joyce Parry Moore is now an Episcopal priest and rector of St. Bartholomew's Church in Livermore, CA. She lives there with her husband, 13-year-old daughter, and two dogs, who are all patiently waiting for her to finish her Doctorate dissertation in Pastoral Counseling. Her book, Breast Dancer: One Alaskan Soprano's Journey from Cancer to Priesthood, will be out in September, and is available on her website, Everyday Priestess.
Recorded by KTOO in Juneau, Alaska and produced by Dan Gediman for This I Believe, Inc.
As heard on The Bob Edwards Show, August 9, 2013Around the time Joyce Parry-Moore was faced with a diagnosis of breast cancer, she also had an opportunity to sing the Verdi Requiem with the Juneau Symphony. Ms. Parry-Moore now believes in the healing power of the music and that moment.
Age Group: 30 - 50
Themes: creativity, illness
Audio Player
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00:00
Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.
Sponsor This EssayI believe in the healing power of music. I’m a singer. As long as I can remember, I’ve understood the way that singing sets my body to vibrating and puts me at one with the universe. But never have I been as aware as two weeks ago, gratefully singing with the Juneau Symphony the soaring melodies of the Verdi Requiem.
It was a moment I’d dreamed of for many years, to solo in that amazing work. But only a Creator full of divine imagination could have dreamt the journey that would lead me to it in the frontiers of Alaska. Imagine: after years of discipline and sacrifice developing a singing career, to suddenly have my heart cracked open through the simultaneous fires of breast cancer and Guiseppi Verdi. Who knew?
There is a tendency to assume that, when facing a serious illness, one must strive for constant peace and contemplation. Although this is a great ideal, you know, sometimes you just feel lousy and you want to scream your fool head off! And that is Sacred too. I remember when, as a passionate teenager trapped in the banality of suburbia, the only place within my Judeo-Christian tradition that could adequately express my range of emotions were the Psalms, full of angst and so flat-out human that I felt safe in them. It’s that way with Verdi’s Requiem: along with moments of complete beauty and transcendence, he gives us aggressive rhythms that express the more raw parts of our experience. His music—all great music—is not simply a lovely diversion. It is a physical Force in the world, capable of doing great good.
I’ve been through a few things physically—having borne two children, and raised five, broken my back (literally) as well as my heart, and now am entering the surreal journey of chemo-therapy. But so far nothing quite equals the experience I had on that Sunday afternoon, singing the “Libera Me”: percussion reverberating into my bones, the breath of a hundred chorus members pouring into my back, the vibrations of each instrument rocking me forward like a great wind. Awake and alive, I flew on the combined desire of dozens of friends, colleagues and loved ones, at once privately and publicly at Peace.
Yes, I will undergo the rigors of my treatment, and like so many other, braver women before me have successfully done, will emerge stronger, more Real. But truth is: I’ve already been healed. For I believe this: no cancer cell could have possibly withstood the power of that moment we all shared. The rightness of that great music has re-aligned my being, and I’m good to go.
The Rev. Joyce Parry Moore is now an Episcopal priest and rector of St. Bartholomew's Church in Livermore, CA. She lives there with her husband, 13-year-old daughter, and two dogs, who are all patiently waiting for her to finish her Doctorate dissertation in Pastoral Counseling. Her book, Breast Dancer: One Alaskan Soprano's Journey from Cancer to Priesthood, will be out in September, and is available on her website, Everyday Priestess.
Recorded by KTOO in Juneau, Alaska and produced by Dan Gediman for This I Believe, Inc.
Dance Is LifeFred D'Aguiar - Blacksburg, Virginia
As heard on The Bob Edwards Show, March 30, 2012Although he makes his living with words, poet Fred D'Aguiar is enthralled by dance: from the physicality of the art, to its powers to inspire and heal. D’Aguiar believes dance can be a source for peace, if we all join in and move to the global groove.
Age Group: 30 - 50
Themes: creativity, popular culture
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Sponsor This EssayI believe in dance. Dance as magic, dance as cure and dance as a metaphor for life. All types of dances, all movement committed to an aesthetic of the body, of bone, flesh, blood moving in concert, infused with intuitive thought, positive vibes as Bob Marley dubbed it, thought buried in physical detail. Dancers, you magicians, Mr. Bojangles, Martha Graham, Baryshnikov — I call on you; help me with my argument.
End the mind-body dichotomy. The body speaks to the mind. You scratch my back and I will tickle your mind. Let our heads move to the groove of our spinal columns.
I grew up in 1960s Guyana and ’70s London on a staple diet of dance. In Guyana I danced to calypso or kaiso, reggae and dub, lots of hips twisting opposite matching twisting hips and laughter and sweat. My youth in England pulsed with that currency of the soul variously known as love vibes, passion fashion, boogie-woogie blues.
My body and mind unified behind a unique cocktail of socially aware lyrics and compelling rhythms. As I dipped and hopped and spun to songs that called for equality, food for all, world peace, planet love, singing as a moral project, a ministry through song to a dancing congregation.
Dance is magic. One time I threw a nightdress at my woman as we danced and all she had to do was hold up her arms for the silk dress to land a perfect fit on her perfect body, another time I danced opposite a woman and I knew from our movements of pure Euclidean geometry that she would be mine, yet another time I landed in New Zealand and Maori warriors approached me as if they would kill me where I stood, they foot-stomped, thrust spears and high-kicked, only to stop inches from my face to rub noses with me.
Dance is a cure. When I worked as a psychiatric nurse in London, a sick woman, anxious and hair-pulling and thin with worry, danced her way from neurosis to happiness in three weeks of aerobic bliss. And the nurses decompressed from the cares of their day by dancing the night away.
Dance is life, a moral project; if only nations could gather to dance, twist their territorial and trade disputes into the dust, and conjure peace. If only Coca-Coca taught the world to dance in perfect harmony. I see Neil Armstrong’s first step as the start of a moon-dance for mankind. Imagine the Constitution, “We the dancers,” or “I dance therefore it is self-evident that all bodies are created equal.”
Like a lot of people I think through difficult issues while dancing. “I dance therefore I am.” Dance could be the method for understanding the most arcane concepts like nanotechnology, quantum mechanics, or the poetry theory of Sprung Rhythm? To the politicians in this election year I say, if you must carry a big stick at least dance with it. And to the citizens, I invite you to dance for the greater good, one and all.
Fred D’Aguiar is a poet and novelist. His most recent book, his twelfth, is Continental Shelf, a collection of poems published in 2009 by Carcanet Press. D’Aguiar teaches at Virginia Tech where he is Gloria D. Smith Professor of English.
Homepage photo by Valencia Community College. Essay page photo by Richard Mallory Allnutt.
As heard on The Bob Edwards Show, March 30, 2012Although he makes his living with words, poet Fred D'Aguiar is enthralled by dance: from the physicality of the art, to its powers to inspire and heal. D’Aguiar believes dance can be a source for peace, if we all join in and move to the global groove.
Age Group: 30 - 50
Themes: creativity, popular culture
Audio Player
00:00
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00:00
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Sponsor This EssayI believe in dance. Dance as magic, dance as cure and dance as a metaphor for life. All types of dances, all movement committed to an aesthetic of the body, of bone, flesh, blood moving in concert, infused with intuitive thought, positive vibes as Bob Marley dubbed it, thought buried in physical detail. Dancers, you magicians, Mr. Bojangles, Martha Graham, Baryshnikov — I call on you; help me with my argument.
End the mind-body dichotomy. The body speaks to the mind. You scratch my back and I will tickle your mind. Let our heads move to the groove of our spinal columns.
I grew up in 1960s Guyana and ’70s London on a staple diet of dance. In Guyana I danced to calypso or kaiso, reggae and dub, lots of hips twisting opposite matching twisting hips and laughter and sweat. My youth in England pulsed with that currency of the soul variously known as love vibes, passion fashion, boogie-woogie blues.
My body and mind unified behind a unique cocktail of socially aware lyrics and compelling rhythms. As I dipped and hopped and spun to songs that called for equality, food for all, world peace, planet love, singing as a moral project, a ministry through song to a dancing congregation.
Dance is magic. One time I threw a nightdress at my woman as we danced and all she had to do was hold up her arms for the silk dress to land a perfect fit on her perfect body, another time I danced opposite a woman and I knew from our movements of pure Euclidean geometry that she would be mine, yet another time I landed in New Zealand and Maori warriors approached me as if they would kill me where I stood, they foot-stomped, thrust spears and high-kicked, only to stop inches from my face to rub noses with me.
Dance is a cure. When I worked as a psychiatric nurse in London, a sick woman, anxious and hair-pulling and thin with worry, danced her way from neurosis to happiness in three weeks of aerobic bliss. And the nurses decompressed from the cares of their day by dancing the night away.
Dance is life, a moral project; if only nations could gather to dance, twist their territorial and trade disputes into the dust, and conjure peace. If only Coca-Coca taught the world to dance in perfect harmony. I see Neil Armstrong’s first step as the start of a moon-dance for mankind. Imagine the Constitution, “We the dancers,” or “I dance therefore it is self-evident that all bodies are created equal.”
Like a lot of people I think through difficult issues while dancing. “I dance therefore I am.” Dance could be the method for understanding the most arcane concepts like nanotechnology, quantum mechanics, or the poetry theory of Sprung Rhythm? To the politicians in this election year I say, if you must carry a big stick at least dance with it. And to the citizens, I invite you to dance for the greater good, one and all.
Fred D’Aguiar is a poet and novelist. His most recent book, his twelfth, is Continental Shelf, a collection of poems published in 2009 by Carcanet Press. D’Aguiar teaches at Virginia Tech where he is Gloria D. Smith Professor of English.
Homepage photo by Valencia Community College. Essay page photo by Richard Mallory Allnutt.