Sometimes you just gotta get your hippy on

I love Venice Beach on a Sunday. It’s literally my favorite day. It’s so alive. The street performers are drawing their crowds; the roller skaters are living their best lives on the rink; the vendors are hustling their art; the skaters are defying gravity and doing mind blowing feats; and the drum circle is pulsating it’s rhythm like a beating heart.

It started as a joke. The intention of delving into a tribalistic state with a bunch of hippies on the beach sounded like it would make for a great story somewhere down the line. We went right after the new year- after a day of skating at the skatepark, we took our small little crew and headed towards the beating drums and chants near sunset. We set ourselves up safely a few yards away from the heart of it and started being silly around the whole thing. “Hey we should go in the center. That would be funny, right guys?” “Oh hell yeah totally, go get sucked in a tell me how it is.” Fine, I thought. I will. Why not.

I pushed my way through the tight circle of drummers who had a sandy dance floor in the middle, filled with all different kinds of characters- the whimsical hippy girl in a flowery dress, yelling chants out to her drumming lover; the two skinny pale dudes, one filming the other constantly as he swayed, showing no emotion; the glowing black dude who’s hip flexibility made me jealous; or the group of frats boys in their bathing suits, sweaty, animalistic, bro-ing out with arms around each other and jumping up and down. The energy was immediately exhilarating. I hid under the anonymity of my mask and started dancing; timid, at first- I just wanted to dance by myself, and really didn’t want to be pursued by anyone...specifically I just didn't want anyone grinding up on me, being a solo woman in on the dance floor (you boys have it so lucky).

But it wasn’t like that at all. Everyone was just there to be. Out of nowhere, the chanting hippie girl made eye contact me with and started chanting at me and I was like well, dammit, I can’t NOT chant back. So I started chanting with her, and getting really into it, and started to feel lighter. Then my hips got looser and my arms started flinging and I just lost myself. And it felt amazing. Any time I’d take a break to my friends, still in their safe zone outside of the circle, I’d have one ear to their conversation and one eye to the dance floor, waiting for the right moment to go run back in. Back in the center we'd have dance-offs, cheering eachother on, taking turns to express ourselves, dancing however we saw fit to the mesmerizing and liberating rhythm. I felt like myself again, re-discovering a part of myself that I hadn't honored for a while. I found myself, by losing myself.

I don’t believe in New Years resolutions, for obvious reasons, but this sense of losing myself reinstated my old but forgotten outlook on life, and it came at the perfect time to set the intention and the intention is- do the things that bring your spirit to life. To really nail that in, I went home and found a list of values to choose from so I could make my own core list of values. Trying to whittle it to just 10, I found that I picked a lot of synonymous words- adventure, fun, playfulness, spirit, spontaneity- amongst others- and realized, wow, I’m picking the same idea, just under a different word. These values make me my best self. Getting sweaty and dancing around a bunch of strangers from all walks of life, without shame, without worrying about time, without worrying about how I looked… made me feel high for days. It made my realize how much pressure I’ve been putting on myself lately to be “perfect”, and how by doing that, I’ve been forgetting to just have fun in the moment. I made it my goal- not just for the year, but for the unforeseeable future- to strive to always be the best version of myself. That if I stick to my core set of values, my spirit becomes alive, and when my spirit becomes alive, well hell, you better bring your drum down to the beach and have a good dance with me to the setting sun.

And I’ve gone back every Sunday since (I now bring my tambourine).