Frankie

writers’ piece

By

Amal

Awad

• 
  

When I was invited to attend a

‘conscious dance’ event a couple

of years ago, my response was not

an immediate yes. I’ve done my

share of ‘woo-woo’ stuff, which

includes, but is not limited to a

workshop to connect to my ‘dragon’

(whose name, it turns out, is Cleo,

and can be called on to clear heavy

traffic – helpful). But this event

would slide me to the extreme end

of the ‘woo-woo’ spectrum.

Conscious dance is basically

performance art with new-age

music and no shortage of hemp

and tie-dyed clothing. Then,

throw in a sprinkling of

activewear and an altar. Smiles

are free and shoes are left at the

door. It’s about connecting to your

‘instinctive self’; about shedding

and transforming. Manifestation

comes into it, like The Secret on

steroids. As I understood it, this

dance would be meditative and

healing. It would involve peeling

away my inhibitions which,

frankly, I’d quite happily carried

around with me for the past

37 years or so.

After some self-convincing,

I took myself to the community

hall and signed up for a three-hour

journey into the soul. The music

may have been soft and angelic, but

the room was buzzing with people

stretching like they were about to

run the 100-metre sprint at the

Olympics. One guy even had knee

pads on, which only frightened me.

Why would you need knee pads?

Was he going to attempt a Patrick-

Swayze-in-Dirty-Dancing-style

slide across the dance floor?

People say, “Dance like no one is

watching.” Apparently, people take

that very literally at conscious

dance. And it’s good advice. Because

nobody looks good at conscious

dance. This place was for people

who had zero fucks to give.

Which is why I needed to stay.

The truth is, I’m extremely self-

conscious. I’m not afraid of being

in the world, but of being seen.

I wasn’t like this at five. At some

point, I began to understand what

a ‘good girl’ looked and sounded

like, not just to people who loved

me, but others who didn’t even

know me. So, current-day me

figured if I could dance with

wild abandon in a room full of

strangers, I could do anything.

Arguably there were many things

wrong with this reasoning, but,

despite experiencing plenty of

anxiety in life, being totally free

and at ease with my body is what

truly terrified me.

At first, I laughed at how

ridiculous it all looked. But

more surprisingly, I felt angry

at how easy it was for some. In

one confronting moment, my

perspective on my body shifted

and cleared: I saw it was more

than just behavioural hang-ups

and being seen that caged me in.

Rather, I hovered between feeling

trapped in my body and completely

disconnected from it. Unlike

my fellow dancers, who – while

clearly there to shed some baggage

• seemed to be on good terms with
  their bodies and what they could
  do with them.

Then again, I’m not the only one

who’s had a shaky relationship

with freedom. Maybe someone

else in the room had parents

who made her wear tracksuit

pants under a netball skirt for

modesty reasons.

As it turns out, freedom is

a state of mind. The cages we

live in are ones we’ve usually

constructed ourselves, no matter

how nicely we renovate them

to appear boundless. I needed to

reconnect to my body – not with

dragon meditations, but through

something more real and grounded.

I’d unlocked a new aspect of myself.

And while I wasn’t going to become

a regular at conscious dance, I

wondered at the possibilities if

I continued to give fewer fucks.

“The sky’s the limit,” I thought.

Next stop, Burning Man.

By

Caro

Cooper

• 
  

I went through a phase – a phase

in the shape of a bad relationship

• where I visited the bottle shop
  with alarming frequency. At the
  time, they were giving away free
  whisky tumblers with every
  bottle of Glenmorangie. I had so
  many tumblers, I started treating
  them like disposable cups.

My frequent visits saw me

develop a friendly rapport with

the bottle shop guy. A flirty

banter – the kind you’re proud

to have with your barista, but

probably less proud to have with

the local bottle-o staff.

When my disastrous relationship

ended, my visits petered out, but

I’d see the bottle shop guy (let’s

call him John) out at shows or

pubs. We would chat. We were,

I thought, not dissimilar. Our

social circles converged; we

liked similar music; we both had

a tendency to not wash our hair

for long periods of time. I wasn’t

physically attracted to him, but

I was newly single, and with the

encouragement of a friend who

told me “fucked-up teeth are hot

right now,” I shamelessly hit on

him and took him home.

Then, I spent the early morning

facing uncomfortable truths as he

snored beside me, his breath

so thick with nicotine I swore

I could see it in the morning light.

I wasn’t lying there admiring him

or enjoying the spark of a new

crush – I was reassessing my life,

reconfiguring how the world saw

me and how I saw myself, after

a night of having my self-image,

my perspective, all shook up.

What sounded like flirty flicks

of my bra strap over pots of beer

at the pub, revealed themselves

to be straight-up insults in the

morning light. The phrase that

stuck with me was along the