Dance like an octopus

Once, I was afraid to dance. Well, not afraid, exactly. Just hyper-aware of how bad at dancing I was. I’m relatively musical—I was the lead singer for a rock band for a few years. I have a good ear and a general sense of rhythm.





How, then, is it possible for me to be so terrible at dancing?

A friend I met in Costa Rica fondly tells me that when I dance, I resemble the little octopus in the film Finding Nemo. You know, the one who twirls to hide her malformed tentacle. It’s an apt description.

About halfway through my marriage, a childhood friend got married. Her wedding reception had a dance floor, and a cheesy DJ insisted on playing songs like the “Electric Slide” and “Macarena” to get people moving. I remained resolutely at my table, sipping a margarita and jiggling my foot in time with the beat. This was all I ever did when there was dancing. Over time, the songs became less forced, but the revelers remained on the floor, bodies writhing and jiving with abandon.

My husband begged me to dance.

“You know I don’t dance,” I admonished him.

“Come on. It’ll be fun,” he wheedled. “I promise no one will laugh. Just have some fun.”

Well, I couldn’t argue with that and still be the fun-loving person who didn’t care what people thought of her, which was who I thought I was. I relented. He took my hand and led me to the dance floor. The music changed and AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” came on. Perfect! One of my all-time favorites. When I was five years old, I had played it on a tinny portable tape deck to make it rain for my gardener mother who complained about droughts. The familiarity of the song loosened me up and I began to dance. Self-consciousness restrained my movements from being too big or wild, but hey, I was trying. The pinched tulle of my lilac dress chafed as I pumped my arms over my head and grinned like a fool.

The first verse was not even over when my husband leaned in and shouted into my ear, “Wow, you’re really not good at this, are you?”

My heart plummeted into my stomach, and my stomach plummeted to my knees. A sick wave of shame and embarrassment washed over me, grabbed my self-esteem, and ripped it out in a fierce undertow as it receded. I felt winded as if I had been punched. I stopped dancing, dumbstruck. It dawned on me that I was even more noticeable standing motionless amid all the pumping, whirling bodies, so I retreated. I slunk back to my table and my margarita. No words could convince me to leave that chair again the remainder of the night.

I did not dance in public again for the remainder of the time I lived in the States. No matter what the occasion was, who the company was, or how many drinks I downed, I could not be coaxed onto any dance floor.

Until after.

It was an accident, really. It happened about three weeks after I moved to Costa Rica. My new flatmate was eager to meet some Ticas and talked me accompanying him to a bar. It was my first experience with Ladies’ Night in Quepos, and I was not prepared.

Ladies’ Night in Central America is the embodiment of rape culture boiled down to its purest form. Usually it means there is one prepared drink women can order for free. Free all night. They fill women up with free liquor until they can barely stand, let alone say no. Men circle the bar or stand outside on the street like sharks who have scented blood in the water and are waiting for the chance to snap up easy prey.

This night was “vodka” and soda. I still don’t believe that the cheap, strong liquid was vodka. Bottom-shelf guaro, maybe. I ordered my first and watched the bartender fill my clear plastic cup three-quarters full with liquor. He splashed a bit of dark cola on top, more for decoration than as an actual mix. I drank these like regular cocktails. In no time, I was full-on borracha—drunk. I am embarrassed to say I did not exercise a single iota of self-control, downing one drink after another. We were in the nightclub in Quepos called Republik. Ear-splitting dance house music roared to the pumping of fog machines, strobe lights, and lasers. The place was packed with sinuously convulsing bodies.

Republik, Quepos, Costa Rica

At the bar, a girl and I started chatting. She was at least as tipsy as I. She told me she was a belly dancer and asked me to come out onto the dance floor with her.

“Oh no,” I said, splaying my hands in the air. “I’m a terrible dancer.”

“So?” she asked.

So?! My mind grappled with this crippling argument. She had a point. What did it matter what people thought of me? Why did I care how I looked?

Before I knew it, I allowed her to drag me out into the mess of flailing bodies. I proceeded with the most atrocious crimes against dirty dancing ever committed in the history of displays of stupidity. We ground against each other, bellies rolling and hips thrusting. My arms waved like octopus tentacles in the fake fog.

I had fun. Way more fun than I would have had on the sidelines. After about two songs, I forgot to worry about how dumb I looked. I laughed—okay, I chortled. Sweat poured off my skin. I danced until the threat of dawn.

Since that night, I'm no longer afraid of dancing. If the music hits me, I dance with abandon. I am still a terrible dancer. I move my body as if I rented it for the weekend and still haven’t figured out all the tricky bits. I look like a twirling octopus.

But the difference is this:

I do it anyway.

I no longer drink much or often (and never again will I succumb to Ladies’ Night), but it still takes some courage and a chiliguaro or two to work up the nerve.

But I dance.

I dance despite the fact that I am rubbish. I dance even though I know someone in the room is probably pointing and laughing at my antics.

It’s one thing to say you don’t care what other people think. I’ve been saying that since I was a Goth teenager. But to live it, truly, takes a little courage.

I’ve decided that, sometimes, I just want to have fun for me.

This became a lot easier when I decided that I would no longer subject myself to the company of insecure and judgmental people. ✌

At my favorite dance spot in Boston, Massachusetts: Club Havana in Cambridge

At my favorite dance spot in San José, Costa Rica: Area City in La California

Do I dance every time there is music?
No.

Do I wish I were more graceful?
Of course.

But I’m comfortable being me now, no matter how ridiculous “me” is. I realized I don’t have to impress the whole world to be happy with myself.

Let your freak flag fly, baby.

(I know. "Dancing in public" is a pretty vanilla "freak flag." But back then, it blocked me.)

I never learned how to dance.
I just learned to dance.
And it’s so silly that it took me so long.

Disheveled and happy, post-dancing

Río Candelária — laughing in the face of a challenge

San Gabriel de Aserrí. Rainy season.

Rain pattered disconsolately on the uneven sidewalk as I and all my dearest friends disembarked from the bus. Sunday demanded our weekly “church” service. I was devout in my “worship”: walking in the Costa Rican campo—countryside. Every week, we selected a different town in the mountains surrounding the Central Valley. We semi-mapped a route to a different pueblo anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five kilometers away. We bused to one, walked to the other, and bused back to San José. We emerged in the gloaming every Sunday, bedraggled, muddy, reeking of river water and sweat, aching, and overall unpresentable, our inside voices gone from having to shout over the wind or river or rain. It did not escape my notice how different we looked from the Sunday late mass faithful who exited the church doors just as we exited the forest. And so the term was coined: “going to church.”

It was a beautiful church, Costa Rican natural splendor, and I was ever-faithful.

This day, all the normal churchgoers were in attendance, including my closest friends, Eduardo, Josué, Ali, and Gabriel. Camaraderie draped over our shoulders as we got off the bus in the rain in San Gabriel. A stoic smile passed from face to face as each of us donned our raincoats and secured them against the wind. My hood flipped off my head three times in quick succession, leaving me with a fringe of dewy pearls adorning my eyelashes. I left the hood down and allowed the rain to have its way with me.

We walked through San Gabriel de Aserrí, down a gravel road that wound along a steep hill toward the basin of the valley. The road turned into a footpath so steep it was easy to fall on my butt—which I did three times—as we navigated grasses higher than our heads, listening for telltale rustling of vipers known to live in these hills.

Forty minutes later, the drizzle lightened off. I pushed aside some young sugar cane to reveal a river gurgling cheerfully as it wended its way along the center of a canyon. I rolled up my pants and waded in. When the water reached my waist, I gasped at the cold. Similar howls of good-natured shock arose from my companions as we all waded across the rapid current. We picked from slick rock to muddy haven with care, arms outstretched for balance.

Once on the other side, we settled on boulders and unpacked our lunches—veggie subs, sandwiches, plastic containers with cold leftover spaghetti, packets of cookies, each person with his own style. I assembled soft corn tortillas, frijoles negros con salsa Lizano, and chunky tomato salsa with a distinct flavor of cilantro. When everyone was full, we meticulously packed up every last scrap of trash and triple-checked our waterproofing in our packs.

We waded again into the river. We stayed in the water for about six hours; we alternated between wading in the water and bouldering along the banks, whichever was most promising at the time. Kilometer after kilometer melted away. Sometimes the river was deep enough for us to simply jump in the water, clutch our backpacks, and float along in the current, occasionally yelping as we banged our knees against hidden rocks. Sometimes we leaped from one huge rock to another.

I exclaimed over the multicolored hues of the riverbed created by volcanic activity—teals, pink streaked with gold sparkle, toxic red, or even blue.

This place was a wonder. Sheer rock cliff faces formed a wall along the river much of the time, and the deep jungle around us resembled something straight out of Middle Earth.

Sometimes the current was so strong, a friend would reach out for my hand to help me fight it. Within an hour, each one of the six of us had fallen. Some gracefully. Some so sudden they elicited a little “whoop!” of surprise as we went down.

All the while, we laughed.

It rained on and off, and we started to wonder how far we had to go until we reached the bridge we’d seen on a map. And then we came to the ravine.

The friendly, rushing river tumbled in a roar of white foam four, five stories down a sheer cliff into a seething pit below. Jagged boulders and fallen trees hinted at an incredibly dangerous fall. By our estimate, we were only a kilometer from the bridge that would get us on a road and eventually take us back to a town where we could catch a bus. But it might as well have been on Jupiter. There was no getting past that ravine.

We made some abortive attempts at crossing, finding alternate routes ahead, but no path existed. Rain- and river-soaked, my friends and I hugged against each other for warmth as we considered our options.

“Well,” said one, “we know civilization is that way.” He jutted his thumb over his shoulder.

In every direction, steep volcanic mountains newly formed by the thrusting of tectonic plates rose from the earth like the spikes on the back of some prehistoric monster. These weren’t the gentle inclines of Tennessee mountains. These babies went straight up. We were surrounded.

“All right,” I said. “That one has fewer trees and looks pretty grassy. Wanna climb it?”

The boys muttered their agreement. We all took a few drinks of water, patted each other on the back heartily, and began to climb. After only twenty minutes of climbing, it was so steep that we were on our hands and knees, clutching handfuls of sharp blades of grass. Pants and wheezes replaced the banter that had been the day’s soundtrack. The sky grew dark much faster than seemed possible. No one said it, but we knew we were going to be here until well after dark.

We reached what we thought was the top… only to see that we had at least twice more to climb. A wiry horse nickered at us nearby and almost caused my friend to fall down, startled. The wind sighed though the grass, and there was no sound—none—that indicated we were anywhere near humans. We knew how to get back, but it would take a long time.

Barely halfway up, and still smiling

Josué leaned over—and the rear of his pants split wide open, giving everyone a good view of his underwear. And that’s when the laughter came back. Gasping for breath, clutching each other, we laughed and laughed and laughed. We turned and looked over the valley. It stretched out beneath us, the mighty river a thin white scrawl amid the green. Fog and clouds raced along the air currents beneath us.

By this time, I didn’t think of my ex very often. I was well over him. Well past that life.

But in that moment, giggling and hugging my friends, scrabbling through the territory of the highly venomous fer de lance snake, with the sun going down, no flashlights, barely any food left, and real dangers closing in, I thought of him.

He wouldn’t be laughing at the predicament we were in. He would have stopped laughing the first time he fell, and by the third, the scowl would have been a permanent addition to his face. I looked around at all my smiling friends and my grin grew wider. I was enjoying the hell out of this crazy adventure, even if I was tired and only had a few swallows of water left.

I didn’t take a single photo that day (photos in this blog are mostly from later excursions to this same hike), but if I had, I like to think you would be able to see the difference in my smile.

Two hours later we emerged on private property of a coffee farm, almost got attacked by a guard dog, and spilled out onto a quiet country road. Skirting pot holes and places where the road had eroded away, we walked in the full dark of night three more kilometers into town, passed only by four or five cars. When we reached town, we stopped for a quick meal at a soda (the Tico word for a tiny mom-and-pop restaurant that serves typical food). I went into the ladies’ room, sat on the counter, and washed my feet under lukewarm water. It was the most glorious feeling I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. I came back out to find my friends gathered around a rickety table, clutching mugs of coffee. “Jess,” they cried. “¡Ven acá!” Come here! I sat among them and inhaled the steam of fresh coffee under the glare of a neon light and the warm sun of my friends’ laughter as we recounted our beautiful day together.

We returned to this hike many times afterward. Below are a few more images from my favorite hike in Costa Rica.