They’re Playing Our Song
June 17, 2011 in Hooposophy
[This week Hooping.org columnist Lara Eastburn remembers the music.]
Every special relationship or time in our lives seems to have its very own, meaning-packed, memory-evoking song. Maybe it was the tune that summed up a perfect feeling, or perhaps the melody that accompanied a moment full of promise and magic. And so it is, too, with my hoop and me.
Every time I hear just a few notes of “our song,” I am transported back in time and through space to a day in the summer of 2003 in downtown Atlanta. I had been hooping for nearly a year and I was deep, deep into my practice. I got up every morning, put on my old-school records, and let ‘er rip for hours. This particular summer morning, I’d been reflecting upon how far I’d come in the hoop, and how much had changed in just a year. Picking up the hoop had coincided with the end of an era in my life while signaling the beginning of a new one. But I didn’t know that yet. I was just moving to keep moving. Just dancing because my hoop had let me in on the little secret that I had a right to.
So there we were — my hoop and me, in a sunshine-littered urban loft with a couple turntables I had synced to keep us pumped up and sweating. The first album ended, and I took a moment to breathe, excited by the sound of the second needle settling into the next scratchy slab of vinyl. As we readied for the downbeat, waiting for our cue, the first bars of a familiar favorite wafted up through the twelve-foot ceilings, took hold, and began to shake every cell in my body.
I’d heard the song a hundred times before, danced to it, been moved by it. But, somehow, not like this. My hoop and I were throwin’ down, me singing at the top of my lungs along with Stevie Wonder’s 1968 recording of “For Once In My Life.” But I was floored to find that, this time, I was addressing the lyrics to myself:
For once in my life I have someone who needs me
Someone I’ve needed so long
For once, unafraid, I can go where life leads me
And somehow I know I’ll be strong
For once I can touch what my heart used to dream of
Long before I knew
Someone warm like you
Would make my dreams come true
For once in my life I won’t let sorrow hurt me
Not like it’s hurt me before
For once, I have something I know won’t desert me
I’m not alone anymore
For once, I can say, this is mine, you can’t take it
As long as I know I have love, I can make it
For once in my life, I have someone who needs me
I was literally filling up and spilling over with a celebration of self-love and appreciation that I could not have claimed before that moment. Suddenly, I found myself in the middle of a one-woman love fest. I dug out every love song in my collection and dedicated its lyrics to ME! To this vibrant, creating, awesome, alive version of myself that had slipped into the place of a shadowy earlier rendition. This me was something new and improved, something that was emerging, awake and in triumph, from within a hoop.
In the soundtrack of my life, this song is “our song,” my hoop’s and mine. It marks the day I began to believe that I was learning to dance not just with a hoop, but with myself. What’s your song?
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Lara Eastburn has been dancing in meadows and singing with the moon while spinning in circles for eons at Superhooper.org. Beyond commenting here, you can also discuss this and other topics related to the Hooposophy for living in Hooping.org’s Hooposophy Group and Forum. Lara is also the planting and gardening force behind discovering our hooping community roots at The Hooping Family Tree Project.
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Gypsy said on June 17, 2011
I love this Lara!!! I can’t wait to see you at HP5:) My song: Universe and U, by K.T. Tunstall. Hurray for all of us!! Woohoo!
Abby said on June 17, 2011
Love, love, love that Stevie Wonder song! Great article, Lara. For me, the song that captures a moment of stepping into myself is Lovely Day by Bill Withers. Eleven years ago, I decided to leave a good position with a Fortune 50 company and walk away from a management position in a well-known company, a good salary, and excellent benefits to start my own freelance business. It caused a lot of fights with my husband, who was self-employed and appreciated the security of my corporate position. I told him I wanted to give this a shot and he got behind me. Shortly after making this decision, I was cooking dinner for my brother-in-law and his wife, who were coming over to visit us from a few states away. The food was on the stove, table was set, candles were lit and I sat down with a chilled glass of white wine to relax by myself before they arrived. Lovely Day came on the CD player I had going in the background. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of deep peace and the knowledge that I was stepping into a new chapter of my life. I knew in that moment that I would make this business a success. That song always brings me back to that moment (and I have never looked back on that decision). And now it just occurs to me that I have to hoop to that song.
Nicole Benisch said on June 17, 2011
Your essays are so inspiring. Thank you so much and please keep them coming!!!!
monahowell said on June 17, 2011
Loved this article Lara! Mine is Jill Scotts “Golden” . Its also my Hoop Business name “Hoop Golden”
rcgirl13 said on June 17, 2011
Loved this Lara! I love how powerful music and lyrics can be. Thank you
Impulsive prudence said on June 18, 2011
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa its all i can say, waaa I just reallized hooping its the only gift I have from me to me!! in my life hooping its only for me, I have no one else that likes it too… and I have no idea how it came up to me, just naturally the hoop called me
randy kato said on June 18, 2011
Unbelievable what power – overwhelmingly positive – these little plastic rings can unleash. Somebody said they like to refer to their hoop as a “circular mind expansion device.” I love that, but now I’m thinking “power portal.”
Hoop So Fly said on June 18, 2011
Oh my god I went through a whole phase of hooping and choreography with that song. To me it’s my dedication to my hoopdance partner Danielle (I wonder if she even knows?)…
There are so many songs I consider “MY SONG”, most recently
Collie Buddz “Come Around,” for some reason it just works for me! I think the very first song I felt this way about might be, well, a whole ALBUM by Buju Banton’s “Til Shiloh”. I would trap myself in the gym at New College with this album and a hoop from Walmart! Goodness, what a memory. Thank you Laura!
Maria/HoopME! said on June 18, 2011
Wow…I had never even thought of what “our” song could be. I know I love to hoop to various songs that are special…but a song that transports me and makes me feel confident and in love with myself?…hmmmm. I’m gonna have to do some hooping right.now. to figure that one out!
The CircularPhile said on June 18, 2011
“24″ by Switchfoot
bree said on June 19, 2011
Great song Lara, and as always, a thought provoking and enjoyable read.
My recurring hoop song is J-cut and Kolt Siewerts-The Flute Tune because my hoop and I have had such wondrous silly synergy hooping to this music. It just makes me feel good. It was also the song I had my first magical, being one and completely in tune and joyous with the hoop experience. I felt like the hoop and I were flying, and that anything was possible. I’ve been in hoop love for just over a year now. My hoop and I are still at the introspective, cusp of life changing stage, so my songs to myself when I hoop lately are Exactly by Amy Steinberg and In my mind by Amanda Palmer, both about being perfectly okay being who you are right now, and Amanda’s in particular talks of coming to terms with and embracing the reality of not being who you thought you’d be at this point, and that’s just fine. Also, she’s saucy and fun and unashamedly herself, which in my happiest moments I am as well, and her lyrics make me smile:
And when they put me in the ground
I’ll start pounding the lid,
Saying, “I haven’t finished yet,
I still have a tattoo to get,
It says, ‘I’m living in the moment’”.
I love to sing along with Amanda when she says “I am exactly the person that I want to be”.
SingColleen of Hyperbola said on June 23, 2011
I totally remember that moment! I had made a huge playlist of stuff I loved to hoop to, and was just hoopin’ out on my patio, when a song came on and everything just fell into place. I didn’t know many moves at the time, but I was getting better at moving to the music, and it all just flowed through me!
Song: The Holy Egoism of Genius
Artist: The Art of Noise
(Album: The Seduction of Claude Debussy)
One of my favorite quotes kind of speaks to this as well:
“Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order” – Virginia Woolf