Catching the rhythm

Gil was an "outside in"dancer.  When he fell in love with Latin dancing, back in the hayday of the Paladium dance hall in NYC, all the best Latin dancers emphasized, started on, the 2nd beat.  Gil would watch their moves and then practice looking at himself in a mirror.  He watched himself and counted the beats 'til he looked, when he danced the way he wanted to.
I'm an "inside out" dancer.  When Gil was teaching me, I tried to count so I'd start on the 2, but it just made me trip on myself.  So I just danced with him, let him lead me (oh, he was such a strong lead, I felt like I could totally let go and he'd carry me)   and my body learned, to feel the 2, how to respond to his subtle hand pressure "here, spin, there, break out".   If I tried to watch myself to see how I looked, I felt vaguely vertigo-ish, like my body was a moving car and the driver, me, was outside, not in the drivers seat.  I had to trust that my body would respond to the rhythm and to let it.

I feel like I'm learning to dance with me.  The background noise of crisis and anxiety are largely gone. There is a soft cotton like feel, not unlike my first encounter with a soundproof booth back in my research days, sort of like some motor noise has just stopped and I can feel it's absence like a pleasure in it's own right.
I'm trying to catch the rhythm of living me.  Odd, since you'd think after 64 years I'd have gotten it, but I've been so juggling crises and so working to survive, that I haven't really been in the driver's seat.  I'm still in the awkward stage of stepping on my own toes every now and then, but I have the space to feel, "who do I want to spend time with? Is this activity something I still want to spend energy on? What do I feel , right now?  Who are you? Why are you?  What do you want?"
I can pick up a subtle level of sensing that I haven't tuned to in years, if ever.  It's changed how I live day to day.  I've left some friendships, fed others.  I'm trying to set in place a much reduced farming operation next year....  I'll know I've caught the rhythm of me, now, when I can feel the ease and joy I used to feel dancing with Gil, and trust it