I heard that song the other day..."Life is a dance you learn as you go...sometimes you lead and sometimes you follow..."
I love to dance. Haven't, in a while, but I love it.
Thing is, I've never led. And, I don't take kindly to being led, unless it's gently masterful. When I dance well, it's when I'm being led by a very good dancer. Jimmy's dad was a good example. Two-stepping with Henry was heaven. I felt like Ginger Rogers, dancing with him. Jimmy did not lead firmly enough, so that didn't work out so well. However, at dancing where you just get up and move, Jimmy was aces. Me, too. I learned to dance in the 60s and that involved a lot of Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead music. Before that, the dances had structure, albeit simple structure. The Slide, the Stroll, the Swim...you know. By the late 60s, when all that psychedelic music became popular, the forms of earlier dances were dwarfed by it, and we just gave up and moved. I think it must have felt better on the inside than it looked on the outside. I saw "Woodstock!"
To my children, my dancing has been an endless source of amusement and embarrassment. I remember, more than once, asking them if they wanted to go somewhere with me, and their answer was, "You're not going to dance, are you?"
So, in dancing, as in life, I wind up revolving alone in slow circles to the rhythm of a different drummer.
At least you have enough life experience enough to know that you keep on dancing like nobody's watching, and you don't give a rat's...if somebody is :)
ReplyDeleteYup.
ReplyDeleteGood memories, Ronni. We used to have "sessions" up at the City Hall every weekend. It was run by the MOTHWA-s. The women's section of the MOTHs.
ReplyDeleteThere were loads of really good local bands who came to play and it was all so exciting. The new clothes, the boy/s you fancied. Trying not to look bothered by any of it. Oh, those were the days!
I have confirmation the the licorice is on it's way. I ordered a couple of bags for myself so I am having it sent to the house. Next time I will be able to send directly to you. xxx
I *hate* to dance - love watching when it's well done but *hate* doing it.
ReplyDeleteThe reason is because my ex danced liked a kangaroo/monkey mutant with scoliosis (?sp) on a bed of white hot charchol. To make matters worse, he hopped all over the dance floor, very seldom facing me and often very far apart.
Quite the imagery, huh?
As a result, I'd be on the dance floor appearing to all the world that I was dancing alone. Not nice!
A few times, I walked off & sat down. He never noticed.
I asked him very discreetly many times to cool it -- to no avail. Talk about not giving a rats' ass! Sheesh!
The upside was that most didn't know that I was the one who came with the "hop-scotching twirp" cuz he looked like he was dancing alone too. :-) The downside is that those who did know us looked on with expressions that words fail to describe.
At my sister's wedding, while doing what he professed to be a polka, he knocking my grumpy aunt on her ass and then crushed her eye-glasses. After she got her wind back, she was even grumpier. She kept my downtrodden uncle on a very short leash so she blamed me for "allowing such antics".
I can count on the fingers of one hand with a few to spare how many times I have danced with my present hubby.
Luckily, he doesn't like to dance either. :-)
Sounds like your ex had a fun time dancing! Thats the way it should be done. If you arent good it doesnt mean you shouldnt dance, the point is to have FUN!
ReplyDeleteBrendan's dad danced like the scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz." I didn't care. As long as he was willing to get on the floor, so that it would be socially acceptable for me to, I was OK with that.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, dancing was not enough.
Jim did not dance. So I haven't in a long time, except for a couple of times when Kaye has persuaded her SO to swing me around the floor a time or two.
Hi Melissa:
ReplyDeleteNormally, I'd agree with you but there was a little more to it than that :-)
Dancing is usually a partnership -- what he did wasn't. More a game of cat & mouse - not to mention control issues :-)
I did date one control freak who did a sort of maniacal seven-step instead of a two-step. Not fun. I can relate.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the running episode from Friends.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the dancing episode from Seinfeld.
Yes, I watch too much tv.
But I adhere to Dance like nobody is watching, and sing like nobody is listening. I have had a BLAST a karaoke, even though I cant carry a tune, and have gotten rousing applause.
That (she explained, carefully) is because they audience is drunk, and you are lovely.
ReplyDeleteCleavage helps, too.
I love karaoke whether or not the person can carry a tune. What fun.
ReplyDeleteA real ice breaker too:-)
Melissa, I laughed out loud reading the mention of the Seinfeld.
ReplyDeleteThe dance scene with Julia Louis-Dreyfus (sp), what a hoot. My daughter still does a great version of that on a regular basis. We still crack up over it.
If life is a dance, her "ability" could explain a lot...
ReplyDelete