The Wild Freedom of the Dance

This may sound incredibly stupid, but one of the things I legit miss most about Cambridge is the opportunity to dance like an idiot twice a week. My history with dancing has been rough to say the least. I danced pretty consistently at weekly classes until I was about 14, and by consistently I mean consistently badly. Being a bit shit would fly in most amateur dance classes, however, the dance school I was at was ran by the most fierce octogenarian I have ever, and most likely will ever encounter. Honestly, it was a good class if there was only one kid crying at the end. And so began my fraught relationship with dancing.

Skip a few years and the possibility of dancing in a nightclub has become a very real threat. I must unlearn everything years of dance classes have taught me. The pros are clear: there’s no one to shout at me if I go wrong. But the cons are also evident: there’s no routine, I have to make up a creative, non-repulsive way to throw my body around to a song I might not know. A moment of appreciation is due here for ‘The Cha-Cha Slide’ and ‘Macarena’ – two songs which THANK GOD come with instructions – they have saved many an awkward dance floor-occupant from complete disaster. Anyway, my unlearning/relearning process was proving more difficult than I had initially expected. One friend’s advice was ‘bend in the middle’, yes, it was going that badly. Enter the hero: a bottle of wine. I wake up the next morning expecting to have been made into a meme. But no, I am unscathed from my dance experience, and after a few more clammy club nights I have become as Abba might put it, the Dancing Queen.

The song ‘I Get Ideas’ covered by M Ward (my favourite version, video below) has the best opening few lines: ‘When we’re dancing and you’re dangerously close to me / I get ideas / I get ideas’. Now I know that getting with people in clubs is not the traditional image of romance, but I genuinely think that there is something just a little bit magical in the dance together beforehand. These are the single most hopeful few hours of any entanglement; nothing can go wrong in the dance, there are innumerable sparks at the prospect of what might happen next, and best of all, you don’t know each other in the context of romance, so even if it’s just for one night you can believe that you’re both perfect. The haze will probably clear in the morning to reveal you’re both dickheads, but in the moments before the plunge you’re standing so high that the hangover and awkward encounters to follow are so worth it.

I miss miss miss the fun, wild absurdity of dancing. One of my favourite poets Gary Snyder has a poem called ‘What You Should Know to be a Poet’ which is literally a list of things he believes one must experience before laying claim to the title of poet. One of these experiences is ‘the wild freedom of the dance’. This is one of the most truthful lines I’ve found in poetry. If we accept that to be a poet is to be a witness, participant and scribe for the deepest movements experienced by the human race, then of bloody course ‘the wild freedom of the dance’ is essential to a poet’s understanding. Something happens that is genuinely electric when we let go and dance without restriction. Speaking is unnecessary. The movement is all. It says I am here, I am physically real, I am worth celebrating, I am both individual and part of this collective act that has always been such a basic human impulse.

'The wild freedom of the dance' captured spreading from left to right.

And I said, what about Breakfast at Tiffany’s?

The germ of the idea for this post began whilst I was engaged in that most reflective of activities, clearing out roughly five years of crap from my room. Being sick of the Spotify adverts (“Don’t you love this song?” *elevator music*) I was listening to my iPod from which a song has never been deleted since 2008. This of course means that there are an awful lot of terrible songs living in there, but thankfully there is also occasionally gold. Cue ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ by one hit wonder Deep Blue Something. FYI if you don’t know the song then the rest of the post might be a little difficult so video is below: (it’s really quite fun, I forgot how much I liked it)

SO, being reflectively tidying as I was, I got to thinking about having something ‘in common’ and how the idea plays out in romantic relationships. You see I’m not sure if having stuff in common is all it’s cracked up to be. When you ask someone ‘what do you have in common with x?’, what you’re asking for are what I shall refer to as surface points. These are the things you could talk about with a near-stranger quite comfortably. For example, I once had a great Tinder date (I know right) with someone who had so much in common with me it actually bordered on the bizarre. We liked the same music, films, books, hobbies – basically name anything you would consider a surface point and we had it in common. However, the great unexplainable ‘it’ wasn’t there, and after asking myself repeatedly what was wrong with me, I’ve come to conclude that the reason behind the absence of ‘it’ actually had nothing to do with me being odd/soulless. The thing is, we had so much in common that I wasn’t at all intrigued, we were way too similar and I DO NOT want to date the male version of me. Having different tastes and interests means both parties get exposure to different things – there is so much music that I love now that I wouldn’t have heard of if I hadn’t been introduced by exes. One of the worst questions I’ve been asked is ‘what do you two talk about?’ – I genuinely don’t know what kind of answer is expected here, there isn’t some kind of conversation menu. Having dated only science students for the last three years, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at actually enjoying talking about science for which A-levels had previously given me a burning hatred.

Of course it would be ridiculous to date someone whose fundamental life views are opposite to yours (anti-feminists of any description need not apply), but I think that matching up surface points is a poor way of measuring the potential of a relationship. Maybe it’s a safety net to stop us from asking the big questions – we both love Scorsese films so his attitude towards commitment doesn’t matter etc. etc.

‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ opens with the lines ‘You say we’ve got nothing in common / No common ground to start from and we’re falling apart’. Well Deep Blue Something, whoever the hell you are, good news is that you don’t need anything in common, bad news is you gotta find something more fundamental than Breakfast at Tiffany’s to base a relationship on.

Love Letter To Cambridge

Seven days ago I graduated from Cambridge and six days ago I packed up my room and left college for the final time. In the rush of the final few days there were so many people who I didn’t get to say goodbye to, some of these people I will see again, others I won’t. Though not a love letter in the traditional sense, this is addressed with love and thanks to a great many people who have shared my time at Cambridge and who have touched my life. So this is my proper goodbye.

There are a lot of different notions of what home is, but for me it is clear. I have a happy family home which I was incredibly lucky to have been born into, I’ve always been comfortable, but it’s never quite been the place for me. Homerton and in a larger sense Cambridge has been everything to me that a true intellectual, spiritual, social home should be. Unlike my family home I was not born into Cambridge, or indeed with the odds in my favour of getting there. But being a stubborn bitch I did, I built the foundations of this home myself, and therefore I’m going to break with habit and say that I’m actually terribly proud of myself.

Coincidence would have it that on this day five years ago I had my Year 11 prom. Being a precocious 16 year-old, I of course thought that this event marked the beginning of the rest of my life and that the me presented on that day would be the me I would take forwards into the world – my best self. Obviously I was an idiot. I was bitterly shy, unsure of myself, viewed boys as another species, took a lot of shit, hated talking to strangers and still thought I was going to be a vet. How times change. I realise that in another five years time I might feel the same way about myself at graduation: a stupid 21 year-old, still precocious and perhaps overly optimistic. But what I can say truthfully now that I couldn’t five years ago, is that I am closer to being the woman I want to be than I ever thought possible. It doesn’t look exactly how I thought it would, but the fact remains that I have reached a point where I know that I’ve stopped wasting time feeling inferior, I’ve stopped being scared – I am exactly who I want to be at this moment  and that is thanks to a great many people.

Never before have I felt that I’ve had such a large safety net of wonderful people ready to catch me should I fall. You are what made Homerton and Cambridge my home; bizarre, nonsensical, loving, wise, stupid – you have been the best friends and the best people I have ever known. You taught me to be good, to be strong, to be weak when I had to be, never to settle, to seize the day and most important of all to always know that I am never alone. Without you I would not have come so far, not laughed so often, not danced so ridiculously and not experienced my full capacity for happiness. Thank you for being there and consenting to live as violently as I do – things were never done by halves.

You have given me the best three years of my life, I love you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

***

This list is not at all exhaustive but special thanks go out to the following people. No matter how long or short our acquaintance, no matter how long since we last spoke, you have been and still are important to me.

Hollie Blockley, Luisa Callander, Phil Colbran, Ed Crowther, Anton Evans, Callum Fleming, Andy Goodwin, Miranda Hewkin Smith, Nick Jones, Ruby Keane, Jack Lawrence, Jo Lloyd, Libby Majumdar, Will Morris, Elena Natale, Geraint Northwood-Smith, Alex OBT, Louise O’Neil, Eleni Pahita, Steve Pickman, Danielle Poole, Isabel Power, Ria Sanders, Ben Spurgeon, Hanna Stephens, Nicky Watmore, James White, Alex Wills, Sam Wiseman, Susanna Worth, Jenny Young.

I separate my English pals because they deserve a specific thanks: I am convinced that it is because of you that my love for literature has not died a painful death. Talking about literature with you has kept it interesting and enjoyable – you saved me from becoming electively illiterate, thank you.

Finn Brewer, Freddie Cooke, Bryony Glover, Kirstie Green, Zoe Green, Lizzie Humberstone, Jen Hutchings, Lizzie Mahoney, Bryn Porter, Naomi Pyburn, Flo Sagers, Miranda Slade, Jess Wing, Toby White

The Measurements of Self Love

Ever since the ‘A4 Waist Challenge’ surfaced a month or so ago I’ve been thinking about how we find it so difficult to love ourselves. For anybody who doesn’t know, the ‘A4 Waist Challenge’ involved posting a picture with ones waist eclipsed by a piece of A4 paper being held shorter side to the top. Many questions spring to mind, first of all: who thought of doing this? Yes a piece of paper has various uses, but a template to measure the human body against has not previously been, and should never have become one of them.  When did we become so insecure that we had to seek validation from an object outside of ourselves? 

The more you think about it, the more it becomes clear that this isn’t really a new phenomenon: God knows how many lengthy battles have ensued with the scales, trying to get them down to that magic number. Calorie counting is a similar kind of validation which has existed for years: many a time I can be found willing myself not to snack, just to stay within the holy 2000. Revelation time: even though this might seem obvious it literally only just occurred to me writing this – 2000 calories a day is bullshit. It works out that it’s the amount of calories a moderately active adult female weighing 132 pounds would need to consume in a day to maintain her current weight. Who is this woman? Cos it ain’t me and it’s probably not you either, there are a million different circumstances that would change the calories needed: if I’m stressed, if I’m more or less than ‘moderately active’, if I’m on my period (hallo Cadbury’s), metabolism and even the kinds of foods I’m eating. At the heart of the matter is the fact that in general, we know when we need more food and we know when we don’t – we shouldn’t need these numbers to validate our feelings about food.

I don’t think anybody is innocent of uploading a picture to Facebook and waiting with eager anticipation for the likes to come rolling in. The number of likes obviously then takes its effect on our self-esteem for better or worse. Same thing with Tinder matches but this time you don’t even know these people, they just become part of a reassuring statistic.

I think in an age where we live so much outside of ourselves, throwing our image about on social media and being so constantly occupied with what everybody else is thinking, it’s hard to find time to consider how we might actually learn to love ourselves properly. Coupled with our obsession with numbers (50% chance it’ll rain today, 3 new notifications I woke up to) there really is no wonder that we’ve lost the ability to love ourselves organically from within, without seeking outside validation that can be quantified. So though it will inevitably be difficult and take a decent amount of time and effort, it’s would probably do us all a lot of good. 

Me, Myself and My Anxiety

Prior to Lent term this year I'd had three panic attacks in my entire life and all of them were fairly minor - I stepped outside and knew that it would be over in a few minutes, so never took the time to think about them or why they happened. Coming back to Cambridge after Christmas this all changed rather suddenly: my panic attacks went from lightweight occasional occurrences to regular severe episodes. But this didn't make any sense, I had no extra commitments this term and no extra stress, so where was this increased anxiety coming from? Other than the anxiety itself there was nothing that anyone could mention that would trigger the anxiety: my only new anxiety was about my anxiety. Just my luck.

I am very lucky in the way that my anxiety doesn't largely impact my day-to-day life. The best way I can describe it is everything is fine until it isn't. There is no large build-up to my anxiety attacks - about ten minutes of anxiety then a further fifteen to thirty for the actual episode (I swear I'm not scheduling them like '30 minutes reading, 20 minutes anxiety'). Afterwards I'll be tired and emotionally drained but re-balanced enough to operate as my normal self again. An attack feels like the atmosphere around me becomes thicker and presses in on me. Whatever I'm thinking about, no matter how serious or trivial, seems inescapable at that moment. This is what makes anxiety such a lonely mental space; the rest of the world seems kind of unreal  in these times of pure panic, one or two thoughts are all I can focus on and the worries attached to these thoughts are completely unrealistic so I experience detachment. I'm lucky again in the fact that I have wonderful friends who regardless of what time it is, will speak to me either in person or through messenger to pull me back into a state of control - you're the best guys.

When these things started happening to me I was hesitant to diagnose them as symptoms of anxiety because compared to severe anxiety disorders, what I was experiencing seemed negligible. But what I failed to understand is that anxiety is a spectrum - it manifests to different degrees of severity in different ways for every sufferer. Leading up to exam season everyone is likely to feel anxious to some degree, but if you're experiencing sudden intense bursts or anything that is negatively affecting your ability to live day-to-day life, then maybe do some research on anxiety. It isn't just a quirk of Cambridge students or something you should just expect to occur at some point. Even though it is common, it is not inevitable and therefore should not be treated as a given or trivialised in any way. I don't believe there is a threshold for when feeling anxious becomes anxiety - if you personally feel like you're experiencing abnormal or damaging levels of anxiety then you are, nobody can deny you that experience so don't be afraid to name it.

Even though the world is a scary, anxiety-producing place, try to stay brave because (for want of a better simile) anxiety, particularly attacks, are a bit like the Cindies queue: it's dark, miserable, you're not sure how you got there or how long it'll last, but you're surrounded by pals and once you're past it you're going to have the best time.

If anyone wants to ask me any questions or has any comments then please feel more than welcome to message me or drop me an email: leanne.walstow@hotmail.co.uk

Scared of Commitment? Bullshit.

I'm willing to bet that we've all either received or given an excuse for walking away from something that has centred around commitment: ‘I'm not ready to commit’, ‘I'm scared of commitment’, ‘I need commitment’, ‘what’s even the point in commitment?’ And this isn't just with relationships. It’s with plans, jobs and even (as I know all too well) dissertation topics. At our age I think commitment is something we simultaneously crave and flee from. It’s a difficult relationship and it’s about time we acknowledged the truth of it: we’re all ‘scared’ of commitment, but we all secretly know that when we say this, we’re bullshitting.

Declaring yourself as scared of commitment is such a tired trope. Perhaps that’s why we meet this phrase with outrage rather than pity, with an eye roll rather than a hug. It’s become so common that rather than a genuine fear, it’s just a part of the character of our age group. It’s a fear we all have, same as being scared that we’ll never be able to afford to own our own house – but I can’t see people giving up on this pipe-dream because they’re afraid. You have to realise that having a fear of commitment does not make you special – you’re not a free spirit, or a damaged yet charming fixer-upper, and you are not a lone wolf. You’re like the rest of us trying desperately to figure out if commitment is a question or an answer.

I think to solve the commitment conundrum we have to ask ourselves what we’re actually scared of, because it’s not the commitment itself; it’s what might result from it. Unfortunately these realities do not make the inoffensive sounding excuses what we might hope for. I don’t want to commit because: I think you’ll trap me, there might be someone better, I suspect you’ll turn out to be a dick, I'm still into my ex – none of these are particularly comfortable things to acknowledge because they’re the things we are genuinely scared of.

Being scared of these things is okay, not wanting commitment is fine and wanting to be on your own is also completely understandable. But for the sake of everyone’s sanity, explain these things and the reasons why, rather than playing the get-out of-jail-free card of ‘commitment fear’. We’re all scared of things we associate with commitment. So rather than using it as an alienating shield maybe try and think of it as the opposite: something in common.

Blog Meet World

'Not your girl' is a phrase I stole from a t-shirt. I hold up my hands and openly admit to plagiarism, sorry H&M. I call this blog Not Your Girl for the same reason I describe it as 'free-thinking', it is a non-restrictive space where the thoughts and experiences recorded belong to nobody but myself - there is no editor, censoring or endorsement. Though it is independent, this blog cannot claim to be objective since what I offer are my interpretations. My aim is to document as many of my experiences as I can in a form that though personal is also widely accessible. If you have a quick scroll through the past articles I've posted you'll see that I write on a variety of things: social issues, lifestyle, theatre and fashion are sections I've covered recently. So there really is no niche, though please don't expect the unexpected because that's too much pressure on me to be wonderfully original. Maybe expect nothing and then be pleasantly surprised when there is something (life lesson #1?).
So World, meet Blog - I'm sure you'll get along.