God Is In The Rain, And The Rain is Dancing
in situ, in gratitude, in joy
About two hours ago, four of my college friends and I met for dinner at Kimura, a Japanese place I found on RESY, and we had a blast! We talked about everything, from growing old and fraying bones, to death and grief, to loneliness, That One Harvard Study, and Zimbabwean genes. We reminisced of course, while peppering in details of our current lives, and the trials and tribulations we found solace in facing together.
After our delicious dinner, we stumbled with hearts full and bellies fuller into the boisterous East Village street in search of dessert. After trying and failing to get into lines (all while in search of quarters for laundry at various enterprises), we came across a place we found cute, and quiet enough that we could continue to talk, and actually be able to hear each other.
Enter Cecilia. We remarked, in the first few minutes of our arrival, how random the find was. I was quick to remember, and quicker to remind the group how there are simply no coincidences in my world anymore, and I looked on as they (in what could only be Stockholm Syndrome or absolute insanity), peeled off layers of sweaters and coats, and proceeded to eat a bowl of double-scoop ice cream each. I sipped my room-temperature water with only a slight shake of my head.
ABBA began to flood to the speakers, and as we each started to tap our feet, then move our shoulders in our corner booth by the bar, foregoing the wine and sake on offer for the warmth and buzz of each others company, we lamented the opportunity to go to more dance parties.
Earlier in the evening, we had discussed The Body Keeps The Score, by Bessel van der Kolk, and how much value we find in different kinds of movement, how much of it we actually did in college without realising it — be it a weekend gathering chez Paran Creek, a weeknight dinner on Commons Lawn with a speaker never far from our group, or a PB party, with Afrobeats blasting so loud, you could hear it from Manchester. I spoke about the power yekuTamba (s.p.) in Shona culture; how I have learned that dance is not simply a response to rhythm, but a medium through which we celebrate, express joy, mourn, and channel emotion. Thinking back to the power, and the true flow I felt, tamba-ing on the night held customarily for such a purpose, the night before my late brother’s funeral*. How it was the most I was able to feel through a time when I wondered if I’d ever feel anything but empty ever again.
I walked up to the stunningly tattooed bartender, and asked if they would be willing to let us dance in an unoccupied corner, if they could turn the music up, and what time they closed. The wonderful staff enthusiastically agreed, turned the volume up, and my friends and I jumped, danced, flailed, and truly truly boogied down. In a time, and a country where it is so many of us feel isolated though there are humans within eyesight at all times, where the limbo of more than one home can get tiring, where just existing in the second quarter of the 21st century almost seems too much to bear, we found infinitesimal joy in our dancing, in our movement, in our freedom.
My college friends used to lovingly joked that, rather than dance, I tend to “dislocate”, swaying hips or shoulders to and fro, but not with much co-ordination. I am proud to say that my parents are unabashed post-dinner dances, almost regardless of the establishment, and have taught my siblings and I the love and joy there is to be found in dancing. I danced with them today. I danced with my family, with Zhanta, with joy, and with my beautiful three friends who, if only for the evening, gave me a home with a door through which to dance.
P.S. It was my dear friend Gareth who said to me, “God is in the rain.” I believe this, so deeply, to be true.
Xo
Tinashe
This article is dedicated with love and infinite gratitude, to Gareth, Niki, Ryan, and Smile.