Joyful Perseverance, Joy as Resistance

by Sarah Dicks

If you’ve encountered any media in the past two weeks, you probably have seen that the federal government has deployed thousands of ICE agents to Minnesota and shot two people, killing one of them. I’m a proud St Paul girl, and I love my home state. Our folks in the Twin Cities are protesting and protecting one another, and it is heavy here. I’m wrestling with lots of emotions right now, with feelings like rage, disbelief, disgust, and grief right at the top of the list. It’s hard not to despair. But I refuse to. I am choosing to love, to be with my community, and to feel joy. Joy is an act of resistance, you know. 

In 2020, when George Floyd was murdered in the height of the pandemic, the despair won. I had converted my garage to a workout space where I was joining the many generous Oula instructors who were teaching via Facebook Live or the Online Studio every day. It was my connection to the outside world when life had become so small. But after George Floyd’s murder and the uprising, it felt sotrivial to dance. There were big freakin’ problems in the world—in my city—and I was twirling around in my garage, talking to a screen! Feeling numb, I just couldn’t do Oula anymore. I stepped back and didn’t dance for a year.

Mindlessly scrolling one day, I came across an event page for Oula in a nearby park and thought it might be worth checking out. Feeling shy and uncertain, I went to the park and was immediately (and literally) embraced by the Oula community. I felt clumsy and out of shape, but I also felt good. I felt lighter, happier, connected, free. I felt like my presence mattered. I felt brave for having shown up—not just to go dance with some unfamiliar people in a park, but for having shown up for me, fighting the lasting numbness to do something that had once been so integral to my well-being. I kept going back, and now I have deeply knit ties to the beautiful and lively Twin Cities Oula community. Even outside of Minnesota, my Oula family brings me joy, offers support, challenges me, and helps me explore and grow into who I want to be. I am thankful for you all, really.

Last week, after Renee Good was shot in Minneapolis, that numb feeling came back. I wanted to doomscroll. I wanted to retreat. I decided to go to Oula.  

I didn’t end up in my usual class, and it didn’t matter. I had the chance to jump, punch, float, and spin. I got to be in my body. I sang loudly. I sang badly. But it felt good, and it made me happy. For the first time in days, that numbness started to recede. Instead of feeling loss and lost, I felt community and connection. I was heartened to see and hear people checking in on each other. After class, a small group of us chatted, and the ever-thoughtful Ruthanne paraphrased a quote she’d been thinking about: “During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night, and it was the dance that kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for”(Dan Savage).

Let it be the dance that we fight for, too. Creating joy in hard times is resistance–that refusal to disengage or go numb matters. When you have light in your life, you can keep motivated, connected, involved, aware. I can’t help but think of another quote that feels apt, one that has been shared by the likes ofKesha,Bishop Briggs, and others: “Don’t let the bastards get you down.” The infusion of joy from that class brought me much-needed energy and determination. 

This situation is terrible, to put it in the mildest of terms, but I will find and feel and spread joy, goshdarnit. “Twirling around” isn’t trivial. It matters if it changes the way you feel, gives you the energy to connect with a neighbor or a coworker or a classmate. That twirling around brings us together. It is a powerful way to create joy. And joy helps us persevere. It helps us resist what is meant to bring us down. Keep dancing, my friends.