The Lemon Life | online magazine offering a fresh perspective on post-grad life.

Words by: Adam Weinmann

Image by: Leeay Aikawa

There is no doubt  about it;  we live in a stressful world. The pressures of our complex and fast paced 21st-century existence have a way of building on each other and, with science doggedly taking the place of faith in life, we are left with ever-weaker forces with which to counter the caustic effects of  our baffling existence. The world has become so complicated, answers have  lead us only to more questions, and we run the risk of ending up broken, bothered and bewildered. This confounded state, my friends, is known as the blues.

According to Wikipedia, scientists are considering an interesting theory: depression (ever on the rise in North America) may have evolved as a way for us to cope with situations in which our efforts toward a large goal might be wasted. This makes sense to me; depression is more prevalent now than ever before, and at the same time, our goals have become increasing massive whilst our security in life has plummeted. No longer can we expect to enjoy a lifetime role as a plumber, lawyer, proctologist, etc; instead, we are told we should expect to change careers several times in our lives.  When faced with all this pandemonium, it’s no wonder we start feeling defeated and, well, blue. When the full cataclysm of life gets to me, and when I start seeing the world through blue-tinted spectacles, I think of another time when I was blue…

Last November, I was 23, out of work, and alone in a new city. In an effort to stoke the dwindling fire in my soul, I decided to try out an African dance class.  It would be exercise, endorphins and  a definite change of pace. I donned sweatpants and running shoes and caught the subway to the community centre across town where the classes where scheduled.  Even from outside the hall, the intoxicating rhythms of the drums made me feel excited. I kicked off my shoes and burst into the hall.  I was hit with a rush of sound and smell. The air was reverberant with the rhythms of Mother Africa, and thick with the smell of unwashed hair and patchouli oil.

I joined the line of students and took in my surroundings. The teacher was tall, thin, and made entirely out of muscle and impossibly white teeth. Behind him sat three drummers, in flowing shirts and baggy pants. There was a woman with short hair, a man with long hair and the biggest and most intimidating man I’d ever seen, sitting in the center, holding a djembe hostage between his thighs and submitting it to a spectacular beating from his massive hands. In front of the smiling teacher were five other students, all focused intently in an effort to pick up the complex dance moves the teacher was doing. Arms were flailing, buttocks were raised high in the air. Four of the five students were women, and three out of the four of them boasted a fuller crop of armpit hair than I will ever hope to produce. They wiped sweat off their pink-flushed faces and dove virtually headlong into their dance moves, their pasty white bodies undulating as if bearing up under the heat of the Sahara.

I joined in, flailing arms and legs in an uncoordinated attempt to mimic the movements of the teacher, bending low to the ground, then reaching for the sun (or least for the rows of fluorescent lights above us). We danced  like this for a while, and then formed a sort of conga line, bent low and shaking our arms as if cutting wheat with a sickle. In front of me, the plump rear end of a particularly sweaty red-headed girl bounced and jiggled, just sufficiently contained within a stressed-out pair of Lululemon  sweatpants.

I danced as hard as I could, screwing up the steps and stumbling as I went, trying the whole time to sweat out my blue feelings and breathe in the life of rhythm around me. Instead,  I sweated out all my electrolytes and  breathed in the musky body odors that swirled around the room. At the end of an hour and a half, I was dehydrated, breathless, and well on my way to cultivating my own stink. I was frustrated, and out the $15 for the class fee.

On the subway home I decided I’m not an African dance kind of guy after all. I hate the smell of patchouli, I think white women should  never get dreadlocks, and I prefer to do most of my sweating between the sheets with another fellow, after a half bottle of pinot grigio.

I enjoyed trying out the experience of African dance, though. In this stressful and complex world, we may be baffled by the convolution of life, but we also have an ever wider selection of options when it comes to releasing our strung-out souls. I don’t know much about kicking the blues. In the end, my blues just disappeared over time. But what is important to remember is that life is all ups and downs.  And when I am down, I just think about that stocky red-headed girl dancing her guts out in front of me, a bead of sweat growing on her lower back, as she bent low toward the ground, and then shot up high into the air, bent low, reached high, bent low, reached high, over and over again.

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