How about dancing in front of thousands of strangers, in silence, kinda like you MAY be utterly deranged? This was my latest uncomfortable experience last Thursday afternoon at rush hour on a freeway overpass. Scene: me dancing, ecstatically at times, for over an hour as cars crept home. If you’re from San Diego, you may be familiar with the famous “mariachi man” who dresses in full costume and dances over freeway passes on random weekdays. Look him up-the guy has great press. This is where I got the inspiration for this uncomfortable experience, but I didn’t bother with a costume or any theme. I just went out there and started dancing. It’s funny. You may think, “Oh, whatever. That doesn’t sound so bad.” Indeed, this isn’t one of my “extreme” experiences, but there is something needling about standing out in broad daylight, by yourself, with no one else hearing your soundtracks, and just going for it. Over the course of an hour, one of four things would happen: Most people don’t even notice. I could see the drivers’ faces because the traffic was slow and the overpass wasn’t too high. This is a good reminder that really, no one gives a shit what you’re doing. Some people would give a slow, eventual stare that seemed to convey shock, dismay, or flat out disapproval a la, “Oh, that stupid white girl.” Some people look up somewhat sadly, I think in a sense of wondering if I’m just another homeless mentally ill person, but at least a seemingly happy one. And then there we those who were utterly delighted, both men and women. They’d honk and wave, give a thumbs up or fist bump. A few would just give me the biggest damn smile they had, and that was pretty fun and rather surprising. At some point, I just got really into it, dancing up and down the whole sidewalk, because somewhere in a lot of these experiences you pass the “no f*cks” line which completely liberates you into a full-frontal expression with little regard for societal norms. Some of you may comment, “oh, like Burning Man!” or “oh, like an acid trip!” but Burning Man and group drug use are both in spaces where participants agree to a norm of being fully expressed. Even that uncomfortable experience I did panhandle is "a norm" that isn't questioned. This little experience gave me pause on how often “we,” be it in a city, at an event, in a nation, or in a company, have silent contracts with one another on what we embrace as “the norm.” Just think of yourself singing your next coffee order to a barista or doing cartwheels in an airport terminal. Those little acts would be outside the contract unless perhaps you’re three years old. Interesting to think about. One petite girl, probably about my age, walked by on the sidewalk at one point. She said, “where’s your dance partner?” And I said, “It’s you, now!” She eventually did a few salsa moves for everyone and we laughed.
This is a good uncomfortable experience you can try any ‘ol time. Highly recommended. Maybe “the norm” will shift to people dancing over freeway overpasses during rush hour soon. Crazier things have happened, like people riding electric scooters in flocks, a hatched norm now.