IN MY DANCING QUEEN ERA
In March of last year, I was in a really bad place.
I had been going through a pretty severe depressive season, and though I’d dealt with them before, I was having a hard time pulling myself out of it. I knew I needed some change, and I had spent months trying in vain to patch the deluge. Working with a therapist, (which I’m a huge advocate of!) we worked out a plan to introduce some positive changes into my life. I cut out alcohol, I began a daily yoga practice, and I enrolled in my first dance class—something I had been yearning for for a very long time. I started learning salsa at a studio in LA, and the thing that started as a “mandatory exercise class”, became a tiny flame inside me. Once a week classes turned into twice a week classes, which turned into a monthly membership, which turned into six classes a week. By the time I moved out of California, I was going to almost 40 classes a month. I was utterly obsessed. And with all of the changes I had planned—moving home, taking the TEFL course, and moving to Costa Rica—I was becoming increasingly more worried about losing all the positive momentum in my mental health journey. I didn’t want to rely on dance to be happy, but I craved the dopamine, the performance, the creativity, the connection, and the joy I got every time I stepped onto the studio floor. I knew that regardless of how it looked, I needed to keep dance in my life. Something clicked inside me, told me this is right, and I wasn’t about to ignore signs from the universe.
I kept up with dance a little bit after returning home, but Latin ballroom dancing isn’t exactly a staple of Fort Myers, Florida. By the time January rolled around, I was chomping at the bit. I barely had groceries before I went dancing for the first time here in Heredia. I was so nervous and so awkward stepping out on the dancefloor, surrounded by Tico couples who all looked like they knew what they were doing. I had never been dancing outside of a studio—thank God for Mau (one of my best friends here)—because he quelled all my anxiety, and more importantly, took responsibility for all my mistakes (the number one characteristic to look for in a dance partner.)
After that adventure…let me paint y’all a picture. I have no clue why people do drugs when they could just dance bachata until the sun comes up. I was (am?) addicted. I needed to find a way to dance all the time! I wanted to get even better. If you know me at all, you know I’m often too hard on myself, and rarely satisfied with whatever level of competency I’m currently at. Don’t worry, I haven’t changed a bit! Thankfully the universe could smell my desperation, because it conveniently brought dance class back into my life. The school I teach at provides dance class to their clients and is a benefit for employees. You know as soon as I found that out, I cleared my calendar.
Now, I’ve found a niche little community of friends who dance regularly, and we’re all growing together. We dance eight different styles of Latin ballroom, four of which are specific to Costa Rica. One of the most incredible and immersive experiences I have here is on Thursday nights when we go to the dancing dive bar (my words, not theirs). I don my dancing shoes and duck into a dingy, dimly lit room. From the outside, you might think this place isn’t even in operation, if not for the walls literally vibrating from the music. Most of the bar is a black and white checkered dance floor, surrounded on all sides by tables and chairs and filled to the brim with twirling, swaying, sashaying, bouncing people of all kinds.
They flip and they dip and they step on each other’s toes and they keep going. They laugh and sweat and mess up and utterly blow my mind. And every single week, as soon as I get off work, I duck through that dingy doorway and I don’t stop dancing until they turn the lights on.
It’s a little reminiscent of my theatre days. I did a few shows in the round, which is a fancy theatre term for the audience fully surrounding you. No matter where I turn or twirl at Típico Latino, there’s an audience facing me. Thankfully, like in theatre, as soon as I’m in the zone, no one else matters but the people I’m working with. During really special moments in dance, every other person in the bar falls away, and I may as well be dancing on a cloud above the stratosphere with my dance partner.
When I first moved to LA, I got on Google Maps to scope out the dance studios near me. I found SOHO almost immediately, and had their class schedule, prices, and styles memorized for about five months before I ever entered the studio. It’s very like me, to know exactly what I need but not follow through with it until months later. Costa Rica has been no different. As soon as I finished my TEFL course and knew we were going to make the move to Heredia, I began my search for a dance studio that could compare to the invigorating nights in LA. I found Merecumbé at the end of last year. I figured that was where I’d end up going eventually. After a couple months of living here, I quickly realized that everyone knew Merecumbé, and no matter where I turned, people I met had connections there. My dance connections here at school, my friends from Barva, and new people I’ve met at Típico couldn’t speak highly enough of this place. Dance class at school wasn’t going to last forever—it’s way below my level and mostly catered to tourists visiting Costa Rica for a short time. And while I still plan on taking advantage of practicing the basics and sharing my love for dance with people here, my progress has begun to plateau. I love these styles of dance I’ve been learning with such a passion—particularly the four Costa Rican styles I began practicing when I arrived. And I have such a motivation to get better.
And so, last weekend I bit the bullet.
A friend from Típico who studies at Merecumbé introduced me to one of the instructors there, and despite the anxiety and fear I felt for a week beforehand, I did it. With no crutch of familiarity, I left my Saturday class and walked across the city to take my first class at the academy. Doing new things always makes me so scited (thanks Glennon Doyle for the wonderful word), but I was especially scared to be entering a brand new environment where I knew no one and also didn’t speak the language. I’m learning Spanish, but when I’m dancing, that all goes out the window. My brain can only do so much, people. The first couple hours made me so proud of myself. Social anxiety that (five years ago) would have made me abandon ship wasn’t debilitating. I felt it, and I worked through it. And of course, there was nothing to be worried about. The people I met last weekend were so friendly, so welcoming, and so excited to have me join their community. I even saw a few people I recognized from Típico! The fire for dance that had begun to dull in the last month has a new life to it. This Thursday and the new familiar faces I’ll see fills me with such positive anticipation.
Thank you so much for reading this and being a part of my journey. Can’t tell you how special it is to share this part of my life with you, as I’ve coveted and kindled and protected it for the last year. It makes my life so full, as do all y’all. Please enjoy these two videos of me dancing: One is from my first months at SOHO LA with my dance instructor Artem. The second from about a month ago, dancing with my friend Dennis at Típico. I’ve come so far and still have so far to go.
All my love,