My eldest daughter has a shower curtain that is covered with what are considered by some to be inspirational sayings. Patience, truth, love and purpose crawl across the curtain; wishing, faith, forgiving, and luck are also represented, followed by passion, hope, confidence and honor. Each header is developed by a statement of affirmation or encouragement. For instance, “Honor” is followed by “the time is always right to do what is right,” and “Passion” is closed out with “wherever you go, go with all your heart.” These sayings can often be found framed on the walls of the offices of personnel managers. The pictures are supposed to either reveal the character of the occupant or inspire the visitor. The two statements chosen to grace the coordinating bath mat are the ones avidly embraced by my granddaughter: “Sing like no one is listening,” and “Dance like no one is watching.”
Lisa sent me a video text of Imani singing “I just can’t wait to be King” — a song from the play “The Lion King” — in a way that was unrecognizable to all but her closest parents and grandparents. She was swinging on a doorknob and belting out the song, adding vocal embellishments and gymnastics that would have been stunning if she could carry even a remote resemblance to a tune. Her mother can sing, her grandfather can sing, her “Auntie Lo Lo” (Lauryn) can sing and aunt Jaci, my sister can kill; her brother plays the trombone and reads music and Imani cannot find the proper notes to even as simple a song as “A,B,C.” Listening to her muscular and enthusiastic rendition of “This Little Light of Mine” is an excruciating exercise in unconditional love.
When I was watching Imani and her brother, Xavion, in the summer of 2011, I took a video of her exuberant display of internal joy: she was dancing in the walkway in front of her apartment building. There was no one near her, no friends with which to play, and she was gasping out an unintelligible song as she stepped, leapt and twirled. Her singing leaps from her in much the same way, though much less skillfully than her dancing, for she is a talented dancer. She does not move from place to place by walking; she runs, spins and dances, making moves that often involve the gymnastics of cartwheels, bridges and back walkovers.
She does this, as Dylan Thomas wrote, “Not for ambition or bread/Or the strut and trade of charms …” Imani’s enthusiasm for life can barely be contained within her six-year-old frame. She impresses herself on her environment, altering the events that flow toward her. She explodes from social confinement as if she were an effervescent freed from a shaken bottle. Her curiosity and wonder are expressed in her tuneless singing and her boundless dancing.
My friend Lisa used to teach first grade in Miami, Florida. She was often amused and amazed by the movement of her charges, many of whom could do no work without responding to some internal music. When I watch my granddaughter spin on her knees and bound up to execute a cartwheel, I can only imagine what a tornadic influence she must have on her first grade classroom. Her mother told me that Imani’s teachers found her to be “quiet and helpful,” and “a positive influence in the classroom.” She didn’t recognize the daughter the teacher was lauding, but since there was only one, well …
A cynic like me might characterize the sayings on the shower curtain as “platitudes,” and “bromides,” but Imani has embraced the possibilities of joy by dancing as if no one was watching.