Fifth Weekly Observation Entry: November 21, 2014 #SocialAnxiety4Days
Lubdig says “bruh” a lot. In a Mr. Macho kind of way. She looks around a
lot too. She doesn’t exactly stare, but she glances. At what? Well,
I’m not sure. We usually get dropped off at school around 7:20 a.m. So it’s
just Lyric and me in the mornings, and she’s typically draggy. But as soon as
people start piling into school, I catch her glancing again. I try to
follow her gaze but she changes her direction so rapidly, I often lose track.
It’s like her mind is always running aimlessly.
I try to imagine what it’s like in Lyric's mind. I wonder if it’s colorful or
dull. I wonder if there are clouds, or rainbows, or just a pile of nothingness.
(I remember when she was younger, she’d always tell me about her blank dreams.)
Or maybe she just thinks about math all day. I guess I’ll never know. And I
guess I’m okay with that.
On November 15, at around 9:45 a.m. during
hula, I caught her glancing again. This time she didn’t look so
flustered. She wasn’t glancing rapidly. She looked calm and peaceful, watching her hands move like our Kumu (teacher) tells us to do, focused on the rhythmic beat of the ‘ipu (gourd
used as musical implement). We both danced in the front. It was the beginner’s
class. We call it “Papa Ohi’a Lehua”, which literally means, “bud of a flower
class”. It symbolizes what stage they are in to becoming a hula dancer. The bud
is the beginning, the foundation. In this class you work on making your
foundation pa’a (firm). My sister and I are in “Hula ‘Olapa”. This class is for
the students who have blossomed into hula dancers.
Lyric loves hula. She always has and
always will. She is very passionate about it. Our Kumu says that hula
is not a hobby. It is a way of life. True hula dancers live and breathe hula.
My sister was that passionate about hula before she even started to dance. When
she’s not thinking, like this day, she dances with such grace. While we are
practicing “Puamana” her mind is at ease. She sways silently to the strum of
the ‘ukulele. Like the ocean on a warm sunny day, she is calm and collected.
I never knew she could be this composed.
I continued to observe her now and then as we’re practicing our hula. I start
to wonder why she can’t be like this at school. According to my aunt, rapid
glancing is a form of fidgeting. And fidgeting can be a sign of insecurity. I
never took Lubdig as the insecure and sensitive type. She was always Mr. Macho-
compared to me anyways. I didn’t really believe my aunt, so I went to another
trusted source.
Google.
I typed in the search engine, “What does it mean when you glance a lot?” which
led me to another reliable cite, WebMD.
This is where I found that staring, or in Lyrics case glancing, has a
lot to do with social anxiety. Then I thought, what the heck is that? I then
found an article entitled, “What is Social Anxiety
Disorder?” Perfect. It stated that, “Social anxiety disorder, also
called social phobia, is an anxiety disorder in which a person has an excessive
and unreasonable fear of social situations. Anxiety (intense nervousness) and
self-consciousness arise from a fear of being closely watched, judged, and
criticized by others.”
I suppose Mr. Macho has a few soft spots. That’s great news though. I was
starting to think she was too apathetic. That it might be too late to save her
from 30 years of cats and Chinese take-out. (Just kidding Lube.) But on a
serious note, I was quite shocked by the data I’ve collected.
I
also came to a conclusion to why she is the way she is when she dances hula. I
think she has molded hula into her own personal dome. A safe haven. When she
dances hula, she is whole. She doesn’t fidget or worry about people looking at
her. It’s like breathing, beautifully necessary. When Lubdig dances, she
gets so lost in her hula that glancing constantly or just thinking seems
unnecessary.
Works Cited
13 Feb 2014. Web. 21 Nov 2014.
Huffington
Post. “Let Your Worries Wash Away With These Calming Ocean
Waves.” Huffington Post. 25 Jan 2014. Web. 21 Nov 2014.
Waves.” Huffington Post. 25 Jan 2014. Web. 21 Nov 2014.
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