It Was Just a Dance

Today as I was doing my rather frequent dance naked in my room for exercise session, a swarm of wonderful thoughts flowed in my brain.

I noticed that I am quite brown. That my long hair and tall skinny self makes me look quite like myself, yet quite like a ton of other people I grew up around. I have brown eyes, and big ears.

There's nothing quite unique about the way I look if you look at my family. We all look so similar, and it's quite obvious we're siblings.

Today as I danced, I kind of just let my spirit flow. It was listening to Tribal Ecuatoriano that helped of all things. I just twirled, I smiled, I looked at my body dancing, I felt the rhythm in my soul, and I just sort of partied over the fact that I existed.

I think about my ancestry a lot. I've asked my grandparents about lots of stuff, who we are, where we come from. Unfortunately, like many other people where I come from, our histories were never really well recorded, or some are quite difficult to come by. Has a lot to do with the whole remnants of the Spanish conquering the area back in the day, etc.(Not that this should be taken lightly, just that this is not the intention of this post) Apparently, on my dad's side, there's quite a significant amount of Spanish descent. After all, my dad, his mom (my grandma), and 2 of his siblings have green eyes.

My family's roots are complex, like anybody else's, and my story I'm sure is not unique. I find comfort in this fact. It allows me to create a sort of new culture for myself, to take the roots I do know, to be curious to learn the roots I belong to, and to move forward with my life and dreams with this knowledge inspiring me to be more myself (whatever that means) and not be afraid to plant roots in other places.

This means that although I may never be able to trace my lineage for generations upon generations, it doesn't take a gene test to tell me a few simple facts. I have quite a heavy amount of "indigenous" blood in me, hence the brown skin, brown eyes, skin and facial features, etc. I also have a trace of Spanish blood in me. I only have to look at my father's side for this.

In a sense that matters, in a sense that doesn't.

I think about my ever-evolving identity and I like the conclusions I've reached on my own, yet not without the help of others. In this journey of self discovery I've found I'm able to challenge assumptions simply by being myself.

Like assumptions about sexuality, every time I get pinned into a heterosexual or homosexual category. I can't count the number of times I've got the "oh really" expression/response from folks who assume I'm either or, go with that assumption, and then are shocked when I say something like "I like men/women/people." It's not exactly a huge surprise, but it does create some interesting conversation starters to say the least. Many folks tend to just assume when it comes to sexuality, and this can be a slippery slope.

Or the assumption of what it means to be American, especially living in Japan. Many of my teacher's and students seemed to have no clue about where I was from or "what" I was when I first arrived. A school nurse once told me I changed their entire view of what Americans are. Apparently, she had never worked with a non-white JET ALT in all these many years of her being a school nurse (all over the prefecture). I think I was more shocked at this fact than she was with my skin color. It was nothing hostile, it was just an eye opener for the both of us, in other words, a good experience to share and learn from and challenge those assumptions about each other, and that we did.

Then there's the assumption of my nationality. The fact that my U.S. passport and birth certificate deems me an American citizen also comes in conflict with my strong Mexican roots. My close ties to Japanese culture also muddy the waters and I'm no stranger to people asking me if I even consider myself American. Truth is, no, I don't. But I don't consider myself Mexican, nor Japanese either. My citizenship was by default, by sheer luck. The fact that the sperm that created me just happened to be in my father and helped to fertilize my mother is simply the game of chance and biology that took place to allow me to be here right now. So to claim that I am a citizen of one State or another to me is ludicrous. I'm very aware of many of the advantages I get because I am "American" though. How I go through customs in Japan like nothing, how I'm treated like I possess the international golden ticket [I do being American], and how I constantly get asked by all people what things are like in the U.S.

To be honest, I don't really know. See, I grew up very much only in El Paso/Juarez. So I can tell you how I perceive things to be there. I also lived for quite some time in San Antonio so I can tell you a bit about my perceptions there too. And maybe even a bit about New York because I lived there too for a bit. But to tell you that "in the U.S. it's like_____________." would just be unfair to the diversity that actually exists in that country. The other thing is that much of my adult life has been spent living outside the U.S., so there's also that. I just don't know, indeed the U.S. seems more and more "foreign" to me as the years pass. If I had to say I was a citizen of anywhere, it would simply be a citizen of the world. My allegiances are to people, not nations, and my beliefs stem from my heart, soul, and experiences, not from what any one nation has deemed should be the way of doing things. We can all learn from each other, and we all must grow together if we are to survive.

Then there's the assumptions of gender I face too. Today as I danced I didn't think "wow, look at my penis" or "wow, look at my lack of large breasts" or "wow, I'm so ripped like a hot guy" or anything like that. What I did think was "wow, my skin is beautiful" and "wow, I have a nice smile" and "wow, I love everything about my body." I have no gender, because I am me. And my body does not define who I am as a person. Therefore, the "sex" I was born into by mere chance I might add, does nothing to make me any better or any less of the beautiful being that I am. I am genderless no matter what interpretation you choose to have when you see my hairy legs, my thick facial hair, my arm muscles, or the bulge in between my thighs. I am me, simply put, and my favorite type of clothing is no clothing at all.

And I'm not unique in all these thoughts. We are all our own people, yet the fact that we can all share many experiences and can relate to how we each feel pays homage to the incredibly capacity of people kind. We don't have to have the same experiences and look the same nor think exactly alike to be successful as people. In fact, I believe it is this collective individuality that makes us stronger, that makes us better, and that improves the lives of all those around us, and our own.

And so I moved my body and danced around moving my hips and shaking my ass like I do, and I put a smile on my face. I was dancing with my soul, celebrating my uniqueness and my connection to the universe and to others. The fact that I exist and am able to feel is so cool, and I hope to be able to share that with others. Now what types of soul movements will you do to turn those wheels of inspiration?