Metabolize your fear

Let's dance.

Hello again from LA, where a steady rain is finally falling.

As I wrote Monday, the fires here left our house and neighborhood totally intact, but our wider environment is impacted. Soon after the Palisades Fire started, our sky was blanketed in smoke. A day or two later, I looked out the window at our backyard. The sky was bright and blue, but pale flakes were floating ominously through the air. It looked like a snow-globe—or a sunny afternoon in the upside-down, for those of you who watched Stranger Things.

Last weekend, I suited up in a mask, rubber gloves, hoodie, and boots. I had plans to power-wash my backyard, patio, and all the furniture and toys therein, in efforts to protect my family from toxic ash. But I felt a wall between myself and the task ahead. It was different from my usual strong resistance when it comes to housekeeping. I had a heavy chest, mild nausea, and an undercurrent of dread. Oh! This was fear.

KCRW happened to be playing in my kitchen. The song “Anti-Superstar” by Haute & Freddy came on, and before I knew it, my legs were lunging from side to side. My hips were swaying, and my hands were leading my arms in spirals over my head. I was home alone and didn’t give a shit what I looked like. (Weird, no doubt!) The dancing required some deep breaths, and I felt like I was expelling dust bunnies of anxiety out of my nostrils and fingertips. When the song was over, I felt ready to go outside, affix a power washer to our backyard hose, and get to work.

I had metabolized my fear.

This is a concept I’m adopting from Miranda July. The author and artist shared a video of herself dancing before evacuating her home a few weeks ago.

“About an hour after this I began packing in a weird slow-motion daze,” she wrote. “But at this time I thought my job was to metabolize fear and keep the mood in the house above a certain level (smoke ultimately forced the issue.)”

mirandajuly

A post shared by @mirandajuly

Metabolize fear.

It makes perfect sense. Fear wants to move—actually, demands to fucking move. If I don’t move it, it gets stuck and makes me physically unwell. Dancing, I’ve found, is a powerful tool for moving it, especially when outdoor activities are somewhat limited by air quality. (Or for those of you outside southern California, winter!) I’m reminded of Ryan Heffington’s excellent Instagram Live dance classes during the darkest days of Covid.

This is the first Big Scary Thing I’ve navigated in my role as a parent first. During the first Trump administration and then when Covid began, I was still a full-time journalist at Quartz. (RIP old QZ.) I threw myself into reporting and writing, and had the immediate community of my colleagues gathered virtually around-the-clock on Slack, doing the same thing. It was literally my job to find out the answers to my questions, and write the answers clearly for readers. I was lucky that my role gave me a pretty effective outlet for metabolizing my fear. (And before I left Williamsburg, there were late nights at the Tender Trap. Again, RIP.)

Today, I’m finding new ways to keep my cool when my surroundings are burning—or it just feels like they are. If the current state of affairs is giving you fear or anxiety of any kind, I suggest an un-self-conscious dance party, wherever you are. Put on music that moves you and let the feelings flow. If you have kids, maybe they’ll want to partake too. Get weird!

Have a good day.

Love,

Jenni

P.S.

You don’t have to dance alone! While I was writing this letter, my friend Lavinia—an actual professional dancer—notified me that Dance Church is returning to the Electric Lodge in Venice on Monday nights. I went to Dance Church once, for her 40th birthday, and had a sweaty, cathartic, ecstatic time. I can’t go tomorrow, but probably will the following week. You can find classes all over the country. Let’s dance.