This evening Bonnie and I went to a swing dance. For the first hour, I did what I always do when I’m in a new dance environment–I judged people. Comparing myself, I can almost always objectively say that I’m no slouch on the dance floor. I can almost always think that I’m shining at least as bright as ninety percent of the room. (It’s not like tonight was my first Lindy Hop rodeo.) But on another level, I’m almost always insecure and self-critical, wondering if I’ll be good enough, if I’ll be accepted, or if I put enough gel in my hair.

As if all that weren’t enough, I’ve been really self-conscious about my body odor the last few days. I guess it all started with the antibiotics, so it’s probably a yeast problem, but it could be something else. Google says that sweat that smells like ammonia can be caused by liver disease (oh shit) or too much protein and not enough carbohydrates. Considering how tight my pants have been lately, I REALLY DOUBT IT’S A CARBOHYDRATE PROBLEM, but I ate this angelic croissant/donut thing this morning just to be on the safe side.

Whatever the problem is, I couldn’t stop thinking about it at the dance tonight because I ALMOST ALWAYS SMELL GOOD. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but as a dancer, people are in my personal space pretty often, and they tell me I smell good on the regular. (I’m just stating facts.) So tonight I was hyper-aware of that fact that my armpits smelled like bleach. I mean, Lindy Hop is a happy thing, and I like to wave my arms around A LOT. Maybe I’m being a drama queen, but all I could smell when I raised my arms was funk, so I kept thinking, “This is disgusting, Marcus. YOU are disgusting. No one will want to dance with you.”

I heard recently that the ego HATES being humiliated more than it hates anything else. I hadn’t really thought about that term–humiliated–before, but I have thought a lot about this one–embarrassed. Maybe being embarrassed isn’t the same thing as being humiliated, but it’s close enough, and I feel embarrassed all the time– about how my much I weigh, how I look in pictures, and even how I dance. (I could keep going, so just one more thing.) Lately, I feel embarrassed about my smelly armpits.

Well, clearly my ego can give me a pretty hard time, so sometimes the best I can do is metaphorically sit my ego down, look it square in the eye, and say, “Would you shut the fuck up already?” In practice, that basically looks like not giving into the thoughts about being embarrassed that are constantly running around in my head.

For example, I kept telling Bonnie tonight that I was worried about my nasty pits, and she said, “I’ll let you know if I smell something gross, but so far your shirt still smells like Tide.” So I forced myself to believe her. Plus, in that moment, I couldn’t do anything about how I smelled, how much talent I had, or whether or not I’d be accepted. So over and over, I got out of my chair, walked across the room, and asked someone to dance.

Well guess what? Everyone said yes. What’s more, everyone smiled, so I can only assume they were having a good time and not wishing they were somewhere else (like close to an oxygen mask).

Here’s a picture of Bonnie and me right before the dance ended. Thankfully, it’s not scratch-and-sniff.

When the dance was over, we went for a snack. Well, Bonnie went for a snack, and I went for a burger and fries (just to be even more on the safe side). When we finished, Bonnie requested an Uber, and within three minutes there was a Ford F150 on the other side of the street, and a guy named Chris had his head out the window shouting, “Bonnie? I’m just going to whip this around.” And then, with his muffler roaring like my dad’s stomach after he’s had Mexican food, he did a U-Turn in the middle of the street, ran up on the curb, stopped, leaned across the cab to open the door, and said, “Don’t worry. I’m a good driver.”

Well, I’m not sure that was a true statement, but I can say that Chris was the most interesting Uber driver we’ve had all week. He had what basically amounted to an Uber Disco Ball on the hood of his truck, and he could make it change colors with a remote control. Plus, Chris was dressed in a suit and tie, and what Uber driver wears a suit and tie at one in the morning? But the thing that really caught my attention was the fact that Chris smelled like an entire can of Axe Body Spray, something that should never be the case for anyone over the age of fourteen. I kept gagging, sort of grossed out, sort of wondering if I should borrow some to spray on my armpits.

There’s a beautiful poem by Uncle Walt (Whitman) from Leaves of Grass that says,

“I believe in the flesh and the appetites;
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from;
The scent of these arm-pits, aroma finer than prayer;
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.”

Well, I’ve seen pictures of Uncle Walt. You can’t tell me the man took a bath every day. You can’t tell me the man used Axe Body Spray. But I love the fact that he was so in touch with his divinity that he considered every part of him, even his probably smelly armpits, to be a miracle. And of course, he was right. As the song says, “Everything is beautiful in its own way.”

Personally, I know that I forget this fact a lot. I get focused on what my body doesn’t look like, doesn’t dance like, doesn’t smell like. I start listening to my ego and get embarrassed by all those things and more. In the process, I forget that I too am a miracle. After all, I’m alive, and I can dance–no matter how well–and I can ask another miracle to dance with me. For I am a universe–large–just like you are, and there is room here for all that we contain, more than enough room for any smell or embarrassment. An ego, of course, is small, and it is disgusted and humiliated by the smallest of things. But a universe is bigger than that, much too big to judge itself or another, much too big to ever question how bright it is shining.