“Yes! Shake it, girl!” I shout from my seat at our local coffee shop.
Fio, my one-year-old daughter, is looking around, smiling and squealing. Some may say she’s dropping it like it’s hot, and she is attracting the attention of everyone at the shop.
I don’t mean she’s so adorable that people can’t help but look at her, though this is true. What I mean is that my one-and-a-half-year-old is both inviting and daring. She looks at people, giving them toothy grins as if to say, “Isn’t this so fun? Come join me!”
I walk to the counter to grab my order, and I, too, start dancing in the middle of the shop, looking at her and daring her to match my energy and let her Freak Flag Fly. Or is it the other way around? Who is teaching who here?
I am a supermarket aisle dancer; that’s who I’ve always been and always will be. I often turn my sentences into sing-song phrases to convey a message. I consider myself a very musical person despite having zero musical talents. But until my girl, I have always been somewhat self-conscious about expressing my musicality and, in some way, my soul.
What’s the difference between a supermarket aisle and a coffee shop? I tell myself that at the grocery store, people are moving; They have places to be and things to do and don’t have time to pay attention to me, so I am safe from judgment. In the coffee shop, any overt display is noticeable… People are looking.
I have spent my whole adult life dancing WHEN no one is watching (or at parties when everyone else is dancing), and I have learned not to “act the fool” in public, keeping my joy to myself and a very special few. This acknowledgment makes the coffee shop dance party more of a bittersweet moment, for I am ecstatic to let lose and show my girl that people of all ages and sizes can love what she loves; I am also a bit sad for the little girl that lives in me that has been waiting for years for me to let her out and play.
When Fio was in my womb, I feared that I wouldn’t be great at playing and that my own lack of a whimsical childhood would be an obstacle for me to parent that part of her. Up until very recently, I still feared it.
I saw her jumping on her dad and wrestling him, I’d hear her laughing wildly with other kids, especially her cousins, and I would see her with my friend Becca, who is fantastic with kids, and I wondered if I would ever evoke this in her. Don’t get me wrong, I am, at least for now, Fio’s favorite person. Her eyes light up when she sees me, and she drops anything to be held and comforted by me. In the middle of the night, she cries for Mama, yet I have never been the person she leans on for fun and play.
This all seemed to have changed a few weeks ago when I made a simple but meaningful shit in my life and day to day. I am embarrassed to admit it, but towards the end of June, at the Summer Solstice, I set the intention to be “Creative, not Productive.” I knew there was one place to start, and when I pulled the plug, I was unprepared for the immense shift.
I gave up most of my social media, specifically Instagram. I deleted all the apps from my phone, allowing me to access Facebook and my Holy Woman community only on my computer. Soon, I started to notice the most significant changes in my life, like an automatic slowing down and ease in my days, but most importantly, Fio.
I started genuinely seeing my daughter and her joy.
Even when I’ve always felt proud of the generally few F*cks I give about what strangers think of me, I realized that I have never indeed been free, at least not as an adult. And social media gave me a platform to perform my rebelliousness, not for me but for the audience whose opinion I supposedly didn’t value. And now, staring at my girl in her absolute freedom with her booty up in the air while her hands hit the floor, I want to join her because her joy, her absolute acceptance of herself, is something I want to encourage and protect.
I want Fio to know that whoever she wants to be is welcomed and perfect, not despite what others think of her but because of how she feels about herself.
“I’m probably crazy thinking you’ll change the world, like so many delusional parents about their children, but I’m here for the delusions.” Cade wrote on her birth announcement 17 months ago, and I now understand the delusions parents have about their kids changing the world, and I no longer see it as wishful thinking. Our kids are here to change the world as long as we don’t teach them to conform to it and as long as we allow them to change US and the way we show up. Remember that we are the whole world of these little creatures.
I intend to be a loving and accepting universe for Fio and myself. Because I’m no longer constantly distracted by social media's dopamine hits, I can pick up a page or two from my one-year-old’s book. On the aforementioned rainy day at the coffee shop, I embraced the idea that maybe we shouldn’t “dance like no one’s watching.” But we should, if we feel like it, dance like we are contagious and like the whole world can surrender to our magic.
Because those who matter don’t care, and those who care don’t matter.