By Amanda Knox

Oasis. The word conjures sunlight, water, trees, the sensation of sinking into soft, white sand. Relief. Delight. I think of weightlessness, of the release of strain that comes not from the relief of burdens, but from their perfect counterbalance.

Take dancing, for example. In West Coast Swing class, I’m instructed to strive for the push and the stretch. My hands linked with my partner’s, we maintain a firm yet flexible frame to push into and stretch out from, following to the momentum of the particular dance phrase. In a push—sugar push, they say—we step into the space between us, compacting, but not collapsing, our frame. Our biceps and rhomboids tense, and like positively charged magnets, we bounce away from each other before we bonk noses.
The stretch occupies the sweet spot at the end of every dance phrase. Without losing contact with each other, we pull back on the last step: a moment of suspension that builds momentum for the beginning of the next phrase. In this moment, my leader scans the external environment for floor space and obstacles (other dancers), and decides where to swing me next. In this moment, I, the follower,and am rewarded with a moment’s exhilarating abandon to the slingshot momentum between phrases, not yet knowing where I’ll be taken next, not yet needing to read my partner for physical cues.

You can feel it. You can feel it as a surprising intimacy with your partner, who more often than not is a complete stranger. You feel it like magnetism, as if gravity couldn’t make you fall.

But as anyone new to partnered dance can attest, it is easy for these moments to fall apart before they happen. The leader may offer a weak or indefinite cue. The follower may fail to understand or respond. Anyone can collapse the frame, rendering cue communication impossible. Anyone at any time can fumble their feet, lose track of the tempo, become unbalanced by the momentum, sending everyone off kilter.

But having persisted, I’ve learned that a firm frame and mindful coordination can make it all fall into place. The oh-so-sweet pushes and stretches are just part of the swing of things. “Things” being all those things—tempo, momentum, balance, frame, communication—that were an obstacle until they were a swing. It is an oasis of perfect, ever-ephemeral, balance.

I think of being an adult as striving for such oasis. I cannot relieve myself of the relationships and responsibilities in my life that are both giving and demanding. Life doesn’t work like that. Living under a roof means paying rent. Cuddly cats need to be fed. Friends, family, partners, coworkers count on me as much as I count on them. Maturity may be measured by the number of things I can carry with coordination. And when all is counterbalanced and accounted for—to find myself without need or debt, to have abundance without excess—what bliss! Even for a moment. Especially for a moment.