I’ve lost a few pounds and several inches. But my body is still too thick. Not for anyone in particular but for the racy dancing that I want to be doing right now.

I don’t typically move like this and my body wants to do its own thing. So I let it. Move in its own way, sometimes off beat and, other times, exactly as I hoped it would — in sync with the baseline and the wild, primitive beat stirring inside me. If this were a tribal dance to exorcise my demons, I would feel a lot holier. I would be cleansed.

This cadence is about words I cannot write, emotions I cannot express, roads not taken, youth wasted, regrets, and tears I refuse to cry. So I’m shaking my ass and parts of me that should not jiggle. I’m sweating profusely in places that proper women wouldn’t allow themselves to. I’m testing the limits of every drop of body oil, lotion, antiperspirant and perfumed scent. And I’m not leaving this floor, not stopping this rhythm, until every inch of me is soaking wet.

Why haven’t I done this before? This shamanic death dance.

If only I had taken earlier versions of this body out for a test drive. If only I had answered the call to shake my ass on every street corner, at every block party, at every DJ set, following every second line band. There would be nothing respectable about me. Either way, I might still be here/end up here: shaking.

There’s only one way to keep kids safe in places that you can’t physically travel with them: get in their head, inform their conscience, walk with them in spirit. My great aunt was the master of this. And she would be one of many voices that would keep me off corners and shaking my ass in improper places. But there’s something about a wild heart that needs to be physically expressed and I wish that something of the structure of my elementary modern dance, cheerleading, or something physically creative had survived my early childhood. I know my choices kept me safe in dark places. But there’s a physical experience that I’ve robbed myself of, reasoned myself out of, in exchange for respectability. And, having recently discovered that I’ve failed at that too, I wonder if my life purpose would have been better served by shaking my ass.

I imagine that sounds very vulgar. It does when I say it in my own head. And it did growing up. We didn’t curse at home as I was growing up, except in secret, of course. But occasionally my family would say “there she goes shaking again,” as if it these were curse words. I assumed they were and, at some point, stopped.

These dances that I’m doing tonight are not unlike dances that women do on wedding nights, in wedding dresses, amid new family and old. It’s a different kind of coming out, a last hurrah before transitioning to another life phase. I always thought I would be too shy for that. Maybe a wedding dress would be too hot for so much movement or these dance moves too improper. Tonight it’s just me, ghosts of my former life, and my ancestors’ spirits that join me in this dance.

In this ceremony, I give up all dreams, including hopes of weddings. All that is left of that once desired future is this dance.

I’m tired an hour into this routine. But their is a lot to be reclaimed: 1984, with kids whose names or faces I cannot remembers, listening to UTFO’s Roxanne, dancing on a neighbor’s porch, two doors down from my great aunt’s house. 1985, in the Lower Ninth Ward, at Pippi’s house on the corner of my aunt’s block, listening to LL Cool J’s Rock the Bells. 1987, Run DMC’s Peter Piper and losing my goddamned mind when the music came in! Dougie Fresh’s The Show. Salt and Pepa’s whole catalogue in the 90s. Janet Jackson, the Pleasure Principle and scraping knees and damn near killing myself on Bourbon Street, trying to stand on and dance with chairs while singing along with Janet, getting ALL the words wrong. What were they doing? Rocking in a limousine? Who knows. Anything Janet, add it to the mix! I remember discovering that her hips looked like mine and finding joy in that. So, yes, add anything Janet to tonight’s choreography! I’m also pulling Geto Boyz’ Mr. Scarface, from Freshman Year of high school, and this weird two step that everyone danced along with the first few lines and the repeat of “all I have is this world.” What else? Every one of my college years and all the years since!

I don’t make it past 2003 in my recall of all the moments that I wish I had made a complete fool of myself dancing. I don’t remember when I stopped dancing. I mean really dancing. I don’t remember where I lost my rhythm even. But I imagine that I lost it somewhere along the way to now, maybe in the same place I lost my New Orleans accent. I don’t think I took either with me, when I left home in 1993. But maybe there are moments when my rhythm, like my accent, returns unconsciously.

Nearly two hours later, my hair is soaked, my face is hot, and all of my clothes — including my underwear — must be aired on the bathroom floor before they can make it to the dirty clothes hamper.

Sitting on the floor, totally spent, all I can think is that I have failed at whatever I sought to accomplish. And I give up. Completely. I no longer know the road I’m traveling, where I’m headed, or if there’s even a destination that I want to reach. I’m not proud of what I’ve accomplished, where I’ve been, how I’ve helped, or what I’ve given up in the process. There’s nothing else that I’d rather do than what I’ve already done. But I’ve blindly believed that a love uniquely appropriate for me was possible and I’ve been proven wrong again. Neither blind faith nor deliberate creation has worked for me and I feel completely lost.

I don’t know what happens when the shaman stops dancing. But I hope that something inside of me has healed with the energy spent in this night. I hope that something of my failure is released and washed away with the soap and shampoo of this shower.