I Want to Sing and Dance My Happiness but I Cannot

I croak and stumble into joy.

I like to be happy. Happiness is my favorite state of being. It is hard to contain. Shutting happy up inside can be disastrous to your well-being. How might you ask? Well, if you do not allow the flame of happiness to glow and grow, it will fizzle and die. And you will sink into depression which will also affect your physical body.

The answer? Express your happiness — sing and dance. Even if you can’t.

Sing

I sound like a frog. My voice box was scarred when I had my tonsils removed according to my mother. I had an acute case of tonsillitis in 1963 and almost died. I remember sitting in a hospital bed full of bloody sheets.

Eew. Enough of that scene.

When I am happy, I love to sing. I feel my song of happiness sequestered in my spirit. It rumbles low in my body like a boiling pot. Not a hot pot, but a vessel cool to the touch. Once the pot boils, the steam of joy fills up the spaces of my lungs.

Then happiness condenses into the cup of my heart. I have to constantly repair the holes in my cup so joy will not leak out. My newly finished cup is deep from the pain of which it is made.

The earlier condensation morphs into rain, and great drops of glee fall all around my heart. Meanwhile, enough of it fills my cup to overflowing. You may have heard the words of the Psalmist, “my cups runs over…” Once that happens, my delight spills up and over my tongue forming lyrics ready to sing out into the atmosphere.

And there it is. A croak.

Before I sing, a warning is given to everyone in the room that they can stay or run as fast as they can to escape(you got it), a croaker’s chorus.

Dance

When I am happy, I like to dance. Dancing is one physical expression of my happiness. I have a generous amount of rhythm. At least, I used to.

I remember the days of dancing with my babies. Those soft bundles of innocent joy wrapped tight. Angelic faces smiling in the crook of my arm as I sway and turn about. I hear rapture in my heart, and my body reacts. It is like electricity in my limbs, and I have to move. I am always moving, it seems, even when I sit still.

Also, I love to twirl. I don’t know why, but I do. I twirl when I’m happy and twirling makes me laugh. Is this a metaphysical thing? My mind goes to those guys with tall hats and robes. What are they called? Whirling dervishes. Whirl and twirl. I know about the second dance — turn a circle.

But how do we whirl? It is a form of active meditation turning in sync with the earth. Each spin brings one closer to God according to founder Rumi, a 13th-century Sufi mystic, poet, and prophet.

However, I have an issue with dance. I cannot do it with my feet. You see, I am in a wheelchair or walker, depending on my abilities on any particular day. But I do not let that stop me from dancing. I dance with my hands, and shoulders, and arms, and head.

I am pretty darn good at upper body dancing. My hands flow like the waves of the ocean. I pop and roll my shoulders with the downbeat of the blues. My arms can play a tight solo air-guitar with Earth, Wind, & Fire or form the syncopated measures of Lynyrd Skynyrd in Free Bird. And I bop my head to the be-bop beat.

Happy. It is an ecstatic place to be. I go there often to sing and dance. Come with me and I will show you how to be happy.

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Debbie Walker is a great-grandmother, blogger, and writer with a BA in Psychology. Her vision is to help others live the life they aspire to live…one word at a time. Stay in touch with her at [email protected]