Margaret B. Moss

Margaret B. Moss is a writer, designer, mom, sister, daughter, and aspiring human being. Following a career in journalism, communications, and marketing, Margaret now writes about life, healing, surviving, and thriving. When she’s not writing, she tends her inspirational Facebook page, Life’s a Dance. She likes to dig in the dirt, make jewelry, and observe garden snails to learn their secrets. And she dances every day. For more info, please visit LifesaDance.org.

From "The Art of Dancing in the Rain":

Life as a dance is the best metaphor for life I know. When we dance, we move through space in skips, shuffles, and syncopated steps. We are aware of the ground underfoot, the surroundings in which we move all our limbs, and other dancers around us. Dance can be a joyous eruption of movement or a slow tender swaying. You can fill the dance floor or move with feet firmly in one place as the rhythm slides down your shoulders and through your hips.

Dancing is rhythmic form of play, as well as the spiritual practice of keeping ourselves agile, confident, and strong. Dance is a practice of awareness of our surroundings and all that moves within it. Our style, agility, and grace are always changing. We dance differently with a partner than we do if we are alone. And, of course, we can fall and break. That’s when we learn the most. It's all part of the dance.

I’ve been a writer since I could use a pencil. Words jumped into my head and played games with each other until I set them down on paper. At some point, I realized that most people were not similarly preoccupied with composing words.

Fast forward from school days to my professional life. I earned my master’s degree from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. I spent many years in journalism and corporate communications — where I was paid to use words to compel specific audiences to read specific words to influence specific outcomes. I crafted words well, but it wasn’t art.

Now retired from that world, I welcome words that show up in my brain unannounced, and invite me to play.

Finally, this collection [The Art of Dancing in the Rain] describes my roundabout search for answers in the quest for a happy and satisfying life. It’s about my journey — marked by success and joy, pitfalls, bitter disappointment, and heartbreak — to arrive at my own imperfect version of grace. If not for the struggle, and my attempts to write it, I would never have reached some semblence of serenity, compassion, and the practice of holding space for what matters most to me.