Looking for the first beat
Yesterday, there was Suzanne, a bachata class, and two bodies trying to understand how to move together.
Bachata has something very honest about it. You can say you understand, that you observe, that you calculate. But when the music starts, the body answers before the story does. It knows where it is flexible, where it resists, where it wants control.
Suzanne was already ahead. A former jazz singer, she carries rhythm like a native language. I was looking for the beginning of the movement, that first beat called the one in English. And of course, that expression opened another door: looking for the one also means looking for the right person, the one you may finally be ready to welcome.
Coffee after the dance
After class, we go for coffee. Suzanne tells me she is a therapist specialized in relationships. So I tell her just enough of my story for her to see its outline.
Some conversations begin softly and then, without warning, place a finger on a very precise spot. Suzanne looks at me and says something that stings more than expected.
I think you have a feeling of superiority.
In the moment, it stings. Because that kind of sentence leaves very few places to hide. But she immediately adds that this is not really the problem. When you grow up too alone, when you have to mature too quickly, certain kinds of armor make sense. They protect. They organize the world. They help you hold on.
Maybe the problem is not that the armor was built. The problem is staying hidden behind it once the war is over.
Openness as practice
Suzanne then talks about openness, vulnerability, that strange ability to stop trying to be above everything and simply be there. Not brilliant. Not invulnerable. Not ahead of everyone else. There.
It is almost annoying, because said like that, it sounds like a recipe that is too simple. Be present. Tell the truth. Let go a little of superiority as a survival strategy. And maybe, inside that movement, become capable of meeting The One.
But vulnerability does not arrive as a clean revelation. It arrives awkwardly, like the first steps of a dance. You have to miss the beat. Start again. Feel the desire to protect yourself, then choose one small opening anyway.
An invitation
So this episode begins here: with a body learning bachata, a mind learning to come down from its tower, and a voice trying to say something without defending itself too much.
I need to practice. Not in the abstract. Not alone in my head. With someone in front of me, even if that someone is still a stranger.
That is what I am proposing: that you be my One for a little while. Not as a romantic promise, but as a starting point. A first beat. A place where I can try to be a little more true.
So if you feel like it, will you follow me?