Back in 1998-9, I worked at a health food store in Virginia.
It was a privately owned, high maintenance, cultish, superbly organized place,
and I have no idea how I got the job because I had no experience, and I was
newly sober, and I wasn’t feeling well in the head at all, I might add, which
made it a true adventure, since I suddenly morphed into a wild hippie – not
shaving, all natural everything, and ironically, very high maintenance. Anyway, being the
extremist that I was, I was soon so obsessed with ingredients that it took me all
fucking day to shop.
Suddenly, when it came to food, cleaners, and detergent,
I had to be 100% pure. And the "pure" criteria changed daily, because each day, I'd add to my "bad ingredients" list. Sure, I've always had trouble with the “happy medium” idea,
but at that time, it was extreme. And then I created an entire recycling center
inside my one-bedroom apartment. I had so much recycling that I had nothing
else in the apartment except for an egg crate cushion, one chair, and a tiny, antique desk. That’s it. Anyway, I became so obsessed and spent so much time studying
labels while shopping that even though I turned into an absolute expert, I got
fired.
Actually, I probably got fired because one day at work I
asked my coworker this: “Hey, do you
know of some kind of aromatherapy that helps out with racing thoughts? My mind
is in fuckin’ overdrive!” That’s right, I really said that. In front of
customers. So, my coworker simply looked at me weirdly, shook her head, and
picked up the phone, and in case any readers were wondering...yes, the call was about
me.
After my short adventure at the health food store, living solely by spiritual books, such as The Celestine Prophecy, as well as a gazillion nutrition-based texts, I became
so excited and intrigued when I met this medicine woman who only had one name,
like Madonna. She was rad, and she loved my “quirky” personality, so she introduced
me to her secret society of “Free Dance.” On Friday nights, a secret group of
strangers got together at some random, vacant house, and she turned some music on, and
we “danced out” the way we felt. Like therapeutic movement, only there was no
real therapist there. Just a bunch of strange hippies dancing out feelings. We
were ultra-serious about it at the time, but thinking back, I’m sure it looked like
a circus. Actually, it was fun as hell…for most of us…
See, there was this one girl who was kinda down I guess, because she spent the
whole dance night curled up in a little ball on the floor. That was her dance –
some kind of never-ending, weird, slow-mo somersault. Every single week, she
curled up in this ball, so I’m not sure if the Free Dance was helping her. My
dance was pretty intriguing. Kind of a mix between some stoned-out hippie
crossed with a hip hop act crossed with a kangaroo crossed with a spider
crossed with someone who just got electrocuted. Really, my Free Dance was no
different than my regular dancing, to tell the truth.
Maybe I’ll start a Free Dance class around here -- get a boom box, some old used CDs, and find some warehouse. I might be the
only one attending. Just me, some Dead Can Dance, a candle, a variety of incense, and…I’d
write more, but I have to Free Dance to the kitchen and study ingredients. I may return, I may not.
