The Rhythm Of Life

There is rhythm in everything we do.

In the beat of our hearts, in the breaths we forget we’re taking.

In the hush of the breeze and the rustle of the leaves, it carries.

In the spin of a fan overhead.

In the way someone speaks—stops, stutters, laughs, waits.

There is rhythm when we talk, and even when we don’t.

Even silence has a tempo.

Sometimes I wonder if we created rhythm, or if we’re just living inside it.

Because what is dance, if not the recognition of this rhythm?

Dance isn’t just a performance or a practiced routine; it’s a mirror to life.

And life—messy, magical, uncertain, honest-is dance in its purest form.

We don’t just dance on stage. We dance when we pace. When we pause. When we fall into step with someone without noticing. When we stir coffee in circles. When we dodge puddles. When we tap a pencil, match someone’s breathing, or fidget our feet under a dinner table.

Rhythm is not only found in the polished; it lives in the unfinished. In the commute. The chaos. The routines. The body moves with it—has always moved with it—long before choreography told it how. The Earth spins in time. The tides obey the moon. Flowers bloom in intervals. Birds migrate on cue. Before we built clocks, nature had already written its score. And we? We were born into it. With pulsing veins and lungs that expand and soften like music. Even the tiniest blink—unnoticed—is part of a greater rhythm. We’re not separate from it. We are it.

There is rhythm within us, too—not just around us. In the steady thump of our heartbeat, the rise and fall of our lungs, and the subtle contraction and expansion of the diaphragm as we breathe. Our pulse is proof of a tempo we didn’t choose but have always obeyed. Muscles contract in synchrony, neurons fire in patterned waves, and cells divide in cycles. Even as we sleep, a quiet orchestra of biological rhythm plays on inside us. Before we ever took our first conscious step, our bodies were already dancing to nature’s internal score. We don’t just live with rhythm—we are composed of it.

I used to think dance began with the music. But now I know—we are always dancing.

The music just reminds us.

And it’s not just in the visible. Rhythm lives in voices. In how we speak.

Language is a dance, isn’t it? Words form lines, stanzas, and pauses. A conversation—two people moving in and out of each other’s cadence, like a pas de deux of sound.

But even beyond language, even when words were taken away, rhythm remained.

When Black people were enslaved and stripped of their voices, they found other ways to speak. Their feet became their mouths. The floor, their canvas. Through rhythm, they communicated—patterns of tapping, stomping, shuffling. Tap dancing wasn’t just art. It was language. And from that, Morse code was born. We learn from history that even when speech was silenced, rhythm kept talking.

That’s the thing about rhythm. It never stops. Even when we’re quiet, even when we feel alone, the world is still moving, still pulsing. And so are we. Dance, then, isn’t just something we do. It’s something we are.

A duet lives in every breath we take. A chorus echoes in our footsteps. Improvisation exists in the way we navigate life’s curveballs. Even the bad days—when we fall out of sync, when we miss the beat—those, too, are part of the composition. Because rhythm is not about perfection. It’s about presence.

The most beautiful part? You don’t need to be on stage to be a dancer. You don’t need mirrors or lights or music blasting from speakers. You just need to notice. Notice the pattern. The pulse. The echo. The way your body finds its tempo—over and over again.

Once you do, you’ll start seeing it everywhere.

In a child swinging back and forth.

In the clink of a coffee mug.

In the flutter of a curtain.

In your mother’s walk.

In your brother’s laugh.

In the way the city breathes.

I’ve started writing these things down. Moments when I felt in rhythm. And others may be even more important—when I didn’t. Because dance, like life, isn’t always graceful. But it’s always moving.

So the next time you hear the tap of a foot, or the hum of a fan, or the way someone’s breath catches before they speak— know that rhythm is still there. Know that life is still dancing. And so are you.