Oh yeah—months ago I travelled to Iceland and Berlin. Months ago, you say. Yes. Months.
But you were supposed to post pictures of your trip when you got back…
True. And really any time I get back is still when I get back even if it’s months later—although there is a certain spirit to the timeline I know I’m not fully adhering to.
But I do know, even if I forgot in the months since and have since remembered, there was one night in Berlin: all I can say is I caught a glimpse into the world of another animal.
Years ago I would go out with my friends and we would drink and dance—and I fell in love with a style of music where a song was over an hour long, a modern electronic symphony with many moods and movements—there nothing radio–friendly about it. In how I was almost a skater in my teens, I was also almost a raver in my twenties.
Jump to my mid–thirties in February—a Snow Moon shines brightly outside as I stand inside a smokey Berlin club at 2AM where I decide to remain because I’m holiday and I don’t feel like calling it a night yet.
The club is huge. I wander. And I find a room where the DJ is spinning trance—the multi–hour music I remember dancing to years ago. I recognize it, down to the artist and mix. It’s perfect. I start to move, not the way I had been previously that night, but they way I remember from years back, a grin plastered over my plastered face. I spin glow sticks I don’t have in my hands, the liquid motion still etched in my mind. I call out when the beat breaks. I howl when it starts up again. I get a drink of water each time I feel thirsty and another beer each time I feel like sitting down. The music keeps playing, and I keep dancing. I’ve decided I won’t stop until it does…
But the music doesn’t stop. It just gets better and better. So I dance, hydrate, dance, drink, dance—repeat. I love the moment and see no reason to leave it, so I don’t. And after what I’m sure is only a few more hours I start to feel hungry, and I know it’s the sort of hunger water or beer won’t fool.
“Danke schön!” I shout at the DJ and the remaining dancers—it’s time to go find something to eat. I know it’s late, but I’m sure something will be open. As it turns out, everything is open: it’s 10AM. I’d been dancing for almost 8 hours.
It’s disorientating being outside. The air feels far too cold and the light is far too bright. The city sounds quiet and I know it should be louder, but I’m still trying to understand where the time went, and how I was still standing. I’ve always been a sprinter, not a runner. In soccer I would play keeper because I couldn’t run up and down the field all the time. I don’t do marathons. I dash or walk, but I don’t run. Not for a long time. Not for hours. Why would dancing be any different?
I’d watch in marvel at the sled dogs on TV, watching them run in the snow, wondering what it must be like to be able to, and in awe at the boundless energy of these animals. They run for hours, and I can only imagine it’s their version of dancing, something they love doing so much they don’t even realize they are doing it.
On the subway ride back to the apartment I reflected on the part of me who must love to dance, the part of me who must love to run. It was a peaceful part of me. I was content and exhausted and quietly pleased with how my night had gone—there was no one telling me I had to go or slow down or do this or be that. It was just me, amoung hundreds of others, but also just me.
I will often tell my animal friends I’m mostly canine when they ask—I consider myself too wolf to be dog and too dog to be wolf, and even though one does come from the other, I still feel very much between worlds, as if I was one of the first to discover how fun it is to run.
Later that morning, as I was getting ready for a little nap, I caught my eyes in a mirror for the first time since the night before. They were a blue I almost didn’t recognize, a bright, piercing, artic sky blue—familiar as mine, as old and happier eyes I knew I just hadn’t seen for while.
But they also reminded me of a sled dog’s.