Friday, June 29, 2007

Do I waltz? (For Deb) (picture for Hanna)


In my mind, I am quite graceful. I can twirl and shimmy and swivel my hips and move my arms lightly about. In my mind, I'm light on my feet and un self conscious and dance like no one is watching, even when everyone is. In my mind (I'm gone to Carolina...) it's all slow and easy and right. In *reality*, I'm clumsy and awkward. I bump into walls (and apologize...not as much as I used to, apologize that is). In reality, when I let go and twirl in the glory of the moment, I'm the girl who trips over the invisible crack in the sidewalk. Heck, I don't even need to twirl, I don't even need a crack, my feet get me often enough and I've had them all my life. In reality, I can't do Tae Bo, because I am too un coordinated to get the moves backwards. I look hilarious trying to belly dance and even drunk people didn't want me line dancing with them. Not that I ever tried to line dance. I have no idea what a watermelon crawl is. Really. My sister and I have been talking a lot about dancing lately. It keeps coming up with different people, in different places. Dancing. Dancing. Metaphorically, literally. Dancing.I've had two great dance experiences in my life. One with a man. One with myself. I've danced with a man twice in my life. Once was a girlfriends boyfriend trying to make her jealous so he pulled me onto the dance floor, and quickly put me back at the bar. Not one of my great dance experiences... I went all the way back to my 36th birthday journal of 2003 for this oneFriday night was the MOST fun. Mike took me on a Lake Champlain "cruise" where you take the ferry across to New York and back, it's about a three hour cruise...and the entertainment was a Beatles cover band called All Together Now. It was so awesome. We were both really relaxed and the weather was fabulous, the drinks were good, the band rocked. I had my first real slow dance, my first dance ever with a boyfriend, to THIS BOY. To top it off, I had my second and third slow dances to Here Comes Sun and Golden Slumbers. It was probably the most romantic hour of my life to date. Still the most romantic hour so far. My other great dance experience was quite different but within the same year, after I'd cried harder than I ever thought a person could cry. (though time does put things into perspective) It had to do with a great book, Good In Bed and a great cd Maroon 5's Songs about Jane and an afternoon to myself where I played that cd over and over and finally put down the book and danced like I knew what I was doing. I *was* Cannie Shapiro. I rocked the house that afternoon. All the houseplants were digging me.Strangely, one of the things that has always been on my list of things that I've asked God for in a man, no matter how teeny tiny my list has been... has been someone that I could slow dance in the living room with. After my family left on Easter, and I had cleaned up (well, they mostly did it all before they left) I looked around my living room and realized that unconsciously created this big, open space, perfect for slow dancing in.So the question is...Do I waltz.I guess my answer is, not yet.

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