A Nude Dance

By Rizwan Wazir

New Year’s Eve is prac­ti­cal­ly upon us once again. Do you always feel guilty for being lazy and not ‘hav­ing fun’ on all the ‘impor­tant’ occa­sions? If so, then instead of curs­ing your­self or the uni­verse for your lone­li­ness, you can choose to be at peace. Instead of scrolling through the Insta­gram feeds of your friends, you can scroll through your own life his­to­ry. Here is a recipe that will make the night one to remem­ber, even if you’re all alone:

Go to a super­mar­ket in the evening and buy your­self your favorite type of booze. I would sug­gest red wine from Italy. Turn on your table lamp. Place a chair in front of the win­dow. Make sure the chair is com­fort­able as it is going to be a long, intox­i­cat­ing evening. Roll up the shades. I would rec­om­mend clean­ing the win­dows first. Hide your phone under your quilt, so it doesn’t seduce you with its lust­ful eyes. Or pre­tend you don’t even have one. Keep your lap­top on your bed but make sure it doesn’t dis­tract you. To spice up the atmos­phere, play Leonard Cohen non­stop. Start with “Dance Me to the End of Love.” Once you’ve start­ed drink­ing, you won’t know what’s more vinous, the song or the wine.

Now the stage is set. Pick up your favorite book, but make sure it’s not a self-help one. The evening is too spe­cial to spend it on read­ing a book that promis­es to turn your life around in 21 days. Pour your­self the wine. It’s axiomat­ic that you will smell it for a cou­ple of min­utes. Don’t drink imme­di­ate­ly. With wine – as with a kiss – you have to let it get into your blood before tast­ing it. You can start read­ing now. If a word, a sen­tence, or a char­ac­ter forces you to look out­side the win­dow, don’t refuse. If it’s cloudy, watch the clouds rub­bing against each oth­er. If it’s snow­ing, visu­al­ize its soft­ness. Hint: June Jor­den, the Amer­i­can poet, describes snow as “near­ly as soft as the sleep­ing nip­ple of your left breast.” And if the sky is clear, go into a state of Noval­uno­sis (you don’t know what that means? Here it comes: The state of relax­ation and won­der­ment expe­ri­enced while gaz­ing upon the stars) and imag­ine being sucked up by sky.

And when your back­pain starts inter­fer­ing with your imag­i­na­tion, go out for a walk. You are a bit drunk now, so be care­ful! Remem­ber, it’s win­ter. Wear warm clothes. Peo­ple will be cel­e­brat­ing, so there’s a good chance of emp­ty streets. Just keep walk­ing. Take ran­dom turns. Imag­ine a big lad­der that will take you to the van­tage point. Rewind the film of your life. Pause if you want to watch a cer­tain scene twice. Pay atten­tion to the facial expres­sions of the char­ac­ters in your life. Observe their smiles: See how much they stretch their mouths while smil­ing. How it makes their eyes squint. What do they do with their eyebrows?

When you’ve watched the whole movie – fast-for­ward­ing through the bor­ing parts – return to your room at least 15 min­utes before the start of the New Year. Turn off the table lamp. Roll down the shades. Take off your shirt and throw it on your desk. If one of the books hap­pens to fall down, don’t pick it up. Even if it’s the one about death. Now, take off your pants and start swirling them in the air. Start danc­ing naked, wild­ly. Enter the New Year with a nude, wild dance!

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Rizwan Wazir is a stu­dent of Pub­lic Eco­nom­ics, Law, and Pol­i­tics. Cur­rent­ly, the uni­verse is expe­ri­enc­ing him like nev­er before. He’s for­ev­er oblig­ed to the inven­tors of poet­ry, cof­fee, and long walks.