Yesterday was one of those days. Instead of moving in any logical form, say from point A to point B, I seemed to be stuck in a revolving door. I'd start one thing and either a distraction or an interruption would take me off course. Ever have a day like that? Add to the winding nature of the day, driving in the slowly falling, traffic congesting snow, and it was no wonder I never made it to my computer to write. 

However, in that spinning I did see something that caught my attention, something that brought laughter and joy to an otherwise confusing day. Driving along Lyndale Avenue past a neighborhood community center I saw these words on the sign outside the building: Preschool Communal Singing and Dancing, Tuesdays. Now this did not seem to be an invitation to organized dance classes or music lessons. It did not seem to be offering tap or ballet classes which would culminate in costumed Sugar Plum Fairies or Prince Charmings. I think the word 'communal' was a well chosen word. On Tuesdays we could walk into this particular community center and be witness to preschoolers….three, four and come five year olds……dancing and singing. Doesn't it just make your heart full of delight?

One of my favorite moments at weddings I attend is when the children begin to move to the dance floor in anticipation of the music to come. Sometimes even before the bride and groom can have their first dance, the children are gnashing at the bit to get those little bodies moving. As soon as the music begins, they are on the floor, gyrating, spinning, moving until little beads of sweat ring their exuberant faces. It is clear they are doing something primal, something that lifts them above the ordinary, as muscles and music meet.

I once had a music professor who had done her doctoral thesis on the spontaneity of children singing. She had traveled to several countries observing children on playgrounds and in relaxed atmospheres. Her findings were that children spontaneously sing with great regularity. In the midst of playing and simply moving about in the world, they hum or sing with abandon.

As adults, we have much to learn from children, not the least of which is remembering who were once were……beings that sang and danced with joy for no reason whatsoever. Children can remind us that at one time we thought of ourselves as artists whose work brought us joy simply in the creation of it. Our imaginations drove what we would do and who we would become. I believe children can also remind us of how the Spirit moves in our lives if we are awake, if we are aware, of what brings us joy and what brings life to those around us.

You may or may not have a child in your home or your neighborhood to be this sacred touchstone. If you don't I invite you to think of those preschoolers filling a gym space on Tuesdays while the snow falls outside. Barefoot or in stocking feet, their winter boots abandoned by the door, I imagine them walking to the center of the gym as the music begins. And then their little bodies will commence dancing and singing for all they are worth, storing up memories for a much later time. Memories of how they danced, how they sang, how they were artists, how their whole bodies were filled with an unspeakable joy.

I bet you are smiling right now.

Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like no-one's watching.
Sing like no-one's listening.
Live like there's no tomorrow.
~author unknown