Choose to Dance

Originally Written July 2021
Sydney, Australia Lockdown

We’ve been learning about native Australian birds and their names.  There’s the Australian Ibis, with their long curved beaks, ready to steal your food at any moment.  There’s the Magpie Lark with its black and white coloring; we’ve seen some Lorikeets, with bright colors flashing in the trees, and the Cock-a-too, with their shrieks sounding an alarm as they soar overhead. 

And then, there are the brolgas.  I thought they were cranes, and they are, but specifically, they are Brolgas.  They are most known for their elaborate, energetic courtship dances and once they find their mate, they stay paired for life.

This month, I’ve been walking along the harbor and passing a fountain, with statues of dancing brolgas.  And it made me wonder a bit about the fact that there are brolgas dancing right on through lockdown.  (Both the statues and the real ones in the wild!)  And what is dancing, but a type of celebration?  We dance at weddings because we are celebrating the bride and groom.  We dance in our living rooms with our kids because it’s pure joy.  Many cultures (outside of America)  dance in worship.  King David danced before the Lord so much so that his wife told him to stop being so undignified.  And yet, he kept right on dancing.  

And here, in the midst of the hard, we get to choose to dance as a way of resistance.  We get to choose joy and celebration in the midst of the grim and depressing news headlines.  Despite the growing covid numbers, the lockdown extensions, and the disappointment, we get to dance.  And perhaps dancing looks different for each one of us.  Some of us are toe-tappers, some are county line dancers who know all the steps, still, others love partner dances, and some can abandon their entire bodies to the dance – swaying and swinging and twirling to the beat.  It doesn’t matter what it looks like, it just matters that you do it.  

In the midst of a world that feels crazy, that feels like the walls are closing in, and like Covid might have the last word, the brolgas are dancing. 

And we get to join them if we will only step out and try.