Write What You Love

I can remember a few distinct dance pieces that left me completely drenched when I got off stage.

That’s the thing about ballet: from the audience it feels dainty; from the inside, it’s tortured feet and all-out athleticism.

There was one piece in particular that I still remember most of the choreography to. It was a contemporary piece filled with running and “falling on the soft parts” of our bodies. The person who set the piece on our college company selected 5 of us to take a version of it to Chicago. It was a dark basement theater and I can still feel how hard my heart was pounding laying on the floor afterwards. Because I couldn’t breathe. Because I was dripping in sweat. Because I couldn’t catch control of my body. It was a moment of joy. We had communed with our audience, worked through something emotional, created art and then left it there.

When challenged to write what I love I began thinking about the visceral.

I’ve been walking around for two weeks listing in my head my favorite things:

• the sharp tingle in the front corner of your nostril when you first step outside on a cold day
• a really well-done cocktail in an intimate bar with a single person to connect with
• ?finishing the Horsetooth Half Marathon for the umpteenth year in a row and feeling that feeling in your chest that you only feel when running long distances
• being an aunt and having the kind of secrets only aunts have with their littles
• spontaneity- you know, those moments when you just give up the whole day to following the fun, grabbing a partner in crime and going where the wind goes
• bluegrass music in the winter, at a tiny little bar where you dance with your friends before putting on piles of winter gear to trek home
• ?the new Adele followed by Taylor so you can just commit to a full sad girl autumn
• ?bad reality TV
• sitting in stillness, in quiet and digesting the day
• ?iced coffee, always
• the smell of the lake I grew up on in the summer, faint wafts of boat gas and seaweed- honestly it’s the best smell in the world
• sledding
• how much my kid loves blueberries

The more I’ve thought about the things I love, I’ve realized a few things: first, there’s something very cathartic about my life. I tend to seek the expression of myself through art and I dive in completely to recognize emotions. It’s work and can be a head trip (also something I usually won’t vocalize, I’ll just go off on a writing binge for a night), but it’s the release on the other side, the clarity and the understanding. That keeps me invested, unapologetically.

Second, I couldn’t pinpoint hobbies or a specific thing because I’ve also been a doer. I just do and contribute and am.

I flipped the question: what is it that breaks me? What fires me up?

Injustice.

So, justice. Justice is what I love.

That seems a little weird, right?

Especially in a professional setting.

But I think it’s actually something that’s been there my whole life, in everything I am. The reason I have always sought such difficult tasks is because I know there’s folks out there doing harder things. I immerse myself in a challenge so I can be ready to take up for them. I have to be in the right headspace to understand someone else.

What do I mean by justice: it’s justice in simple ways and it’s justice in big ways. It’s making sure the people I am around are getting everything they need to be their true selves. It’s connecting with folks to understand them on a personal level so that I can adjust myself to be sure they shine. It’s working on behalf of partners to make sure their business is efficient.

It’s being a little controversial when I see things going wrong.

I don’t think we can understand justice without empathy and I don’t think we can be true leaders without empathy. When I look at who I am becoming and who I’ve left behind, they’re not so far off from each other. Sure, Diana today knows how to hold back a little more when those signals start going off—she’s learned to control herself and assess in order to make an impact. But she’s still coming from the same place: a place where equitable voices get to speak, where fairness in each situation is required, and a place where vulnerability is welcome. ??

We’re all here to create our own art whether we admit it or not.

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