high-bar baking

Eric Church has a line in a song that goes, “It ain’t about the money you make when a record gets sold / It’s about doing it for nothing / ‘cause it lives in your soul.” 

That’s damn rock and roll.

I could write about post about the corrupting influence of money on amateurism (not even morally or anything; psychological studies have proven that when you pay someone for something, they stop wanting to do it without the pay), but that’s a topic for another day.  

Lives in your soul.

That’s what dancing is like. It seems so obvious, doing it (ok, after many years of being bad and not getting it), that we were meant to do this. We were meant to dance. Dancers always talked about self expression, and my bookworm self was like I can express myself plenty well with my intellect from this couch, thank you very much. But humans were meant for this. For bass lines and weight changes and body isolation moves (pop it! Lock it!). For community, and for taking what’s on the inside and putting it on the outside. Even ephemerally. For what are we if not ephemeral?

Cupcakes are also ephemeral, if anyone was keeping track. Already portioned and everything. Sarah’s Birthday Cupcakes and her Ermine frosting. I would use a larger star tip next time, if only I could stop destroying the ones I have in the garbage disposal. Really, no learning curve on this girl.

Dancing is also about the very human pursuit of the perfect. It’s fleetingly rare, but it is out there. Maybe one verse of one song in weeks of dancing. But you never know when it’s going to show up. So we keep looking. 

That moment when the music is just the right amount of loud, the kind where your ears don’t hurt but you can feel the bass beating in your chest, drowning out your own heartbeat or drawing it into alignment with itself. When the steps are right and the moves line up, when your feet go exactly where you wanted them to at just the right times. When the choreographer gets it, and the allotted dance only serves to surface the dancing you already wanted to do anyway. Freedom within the form. 

Those moments when I can actually dance. 

And then the next song rolls. And my soul starts seeking its next window.