Presence

Presence isn’t a feeling, an experience, or even a state of clarity.

It’s about 15 years ago, I’m at a dance (five rhythms dance), I find myself dancing with a woman I am very attracted to. Somehow we turn and fall into a rhythm, and here we are, connecting.

And my head is racing. Thoughts pouring through.

“Does she really want to be dancing with me? What about all the ‘cool’ men? Is she being polite? Maybe she feels trapped. I know, I’ll turn my body so that she has an easy exit. Maybe I should just bow and move to the other side of the room. Wait, what was I gonna buy this afternoon at the store? Was it basmati rice? Oh, we’re still dancing. Everybody is looking at us, wondering why she’s dancing with me. I must be red-faced. Oh, there goes her left arm in a circular motion, and my right arm is matching hers. Is that too forward? What does she think of me? I love this dance, and I can’t wait for it to end...”

This noise dominates our entire dance, which lasts about 4 minutes.

Later, after the music ends, I see her in the parking lot. She comes up to me and says

“Thank you for the dance. You were so present.”

My first thought is “You’re kidding, right?!? Present?? I was freaking out the entire dance. Did I have you fooled?”

But her comment plants a seed in me. Later, over the course of months and years of dancing regularly, similar situations occur. I dance with someone I find attractive, my head fills with noise, and afterwards she comments on how present I was.

At some point, I decide to trust this perception of my presence. I realize something profound:

I had been present. I had been welcoming the noise in my head, and even though it didn’t subside, I had been present with the noise and with the dance the whole time.

Presence is not a state of mental quiet or clarity. It is not a state of positivity. It is not an experience or a feeling. It is more a state of welcoming what is, regardless of what it is, even if it is the noise in our heads.

Over the years as I’ve explored this, something has accrued. Some inner sense of my presence is more accessible, even as my head races, even as the doubts pile up like planes on the tarmac. There is a muscle of welcoming that is growing in me, as well as a growing recognition of the current of aliveness that is always right here, even when I experience internal noise and self-doubt. And this awareness is scary and profoundly relaxing at the same time. Scary, because the road maps I’ve used to assure myself that I am doing well, are dissolving. I can’t navigate by the usual “I feel good, I must be doing good. I feel bad, there must be a problem.” Relaxing, because I’m out of a job. I don’t need to look for a certain experience as evidence of my presence. I don’t need to work at creating those signposts, because all experiences can be present in Presence.