Dancing, a reflection (a LONG reflection)

“It’s four o’clock, time to dance!” I yelled over the very loud hip hop music. It was my favorite pre-dinner time ritual with the three girls I watched. During the winter in New York it was already dark and cold, and the girls had finished their homework and were restless. T.V. was an option, but after being cooped up all day in classrooms they were obnoxiously pestering each other. It could get old and annoying really quickly if I let it. So, I’d call them into what I like to term the second living room. There was a desk and a couch, and some floor space and a radio. I’d start out by generally making an ass out of myself and looking like I was having entirely too much fun to be left alone. The girls would soon wander in one by one.

First in was Tova by far the princess of the three in attitude and expectation, however all of them were princesses in their own right. She’d jump right in, her favorite dance move was the twirl, and I was happy to oblige. Once her intoxicating giggle was in full swing Maddie would saunter in, a little perplexed as to why we were having so much fun tossing our bodies to and fro but she’d begin her little wiggle and was soon smiling and laughing too. Rachel, the oldest, was always slow to join. She was nearing puberty and her teen attitude came in a bit premature. She’d come in and sit on the couch, as though she was too cool to join us, but a wink from me and a little “show us how it’s done Rach-a-con” was all she’d need to be right there in the middle of it.

I learned to dance in college, not professionally mind you, just without reserve and with enormous amounts of energy. I didn’t care what I looked like when I was moving and grooving, maybe that had a bit to do with the alcohol I had ingested, maybe not, but I really took to the whole experience. Pounding colored lights, rumbling bass, sweaty bodies everywhere packed as tightly as matches in a book, intoxicating. This was my introduction to how it could be, this is what I called dancing, and in New York, I gave the girls a little of that experience. We began getting creative with our dances, and would hold formal ones in the basement with colored lights and invite the neighborhood friends. Dancing was soon to become what I was known for in that house, happy, sad, mad, glad, I’d put on the music and the room would be transformed, it was life support.

I hadn’t realized how ingrained dancing had become to my life until I emerged in Wyoming. Living on a compound surrounded by the same (great) people for months, I got a craving for Dance. Despite all the glorious nature and all the hard work and all the amazing people, I still missed dancing. I searched out a club one night with a friend, such a sweet man… he didn’t like dancing, but he was still willing to go as he could see I had an itch and he needed to get out too… I was so happy to be there, and it was perfect. I danced for hours. Not too long after my “fix” I arranged a community dance, I was hungry for more. The characters in my life came to my rescue and we danced into the wee hours of the morning performing old dance maneuvers and making up new ones, we even had “bar” spectators and a good time was had by many (perhaps even all).

Soon I’d be back in California, in the exact spot all my dancing days began. It was different. I don’t know if it was the friends that had since moved to their more “adult” locations or the experiences I had while on my two year excursion to other places, but I was changed. I soon began taking to the bars, not the clubs, holed up in dark places where the bartenders had too tight outdated acid wash jeans and big hair. There was a distinct smell of stale beer and usually sad music playing on the jukebox. These places I labeled as “full of character” but really, they were depressing, and isolated. There wasn’t much laughter, and there wasn’t much talking. I found myself listening to one depressing story after another from the bartender, the stool mate, and the fellow drinkers. I couldn’t hang there anymore. I found comfort in my apartment and in the local chain restaurant that served alcohol when I needed to get out. This transition from lover of dance to lover of drink came about slowly, but I was losing my zeal for life and dancing… I was becoming a bar fly, a hermit. It didn’t take long for me to retreat to my apartment and drink alone. I’d still feel the urge to dance once in a great while, and I would. I would secure my ipod speakers and my funky cheesy dance mixes and turn off every light in the house and dance, but it was an angrier sort. No more “celebrate good times” instead “where da hood at,” or Nickleback and Papa Roach. I played songs that would illicit my need to get out aggression, angst, and the overwhelming feeling of being trapped. I didn’t want anyone to see me dance and I didn’t want to bring anyone into the mix. Even those days were few and far between. I was becoming numb, and I really didn’t care. Feelings became cumbersome.

January 22, 2008 was the date this fine mess came to an overwhelming and listless crash! I had sunk as far as I could, and what’s worse, the façade I had so brilliantly constructed to those day friends I had, shattered into a thousand pieces as I became completely aware of who I had become. I was a sad, lonely, sack of a chick, looking for validation from everyone and no one. Everything in my life had become a dichotomy. I portrayed classy sophistication at work (in my mind at-any-rate), and came home to my bottle of Captain Morgan faithfully each night. I hid my life in the form of isolation and few were wise to my ways. The biggest problem, I became wise to my ways. How? I met a person who had undergone a change in his life that was visible on the outside. He looked like that brand new bike I got when I was four all sparkly and new. He had a story I couldn’t believe, much more exciting than mine and he KNEW where I came from. I wasn’t so much physically attracted to him, as I was hopefully attracted to him. It was as though he was a life preserver being thrown to me in the form of a (self titled) "reinvented man" clearly demonstrating that I was far from a lost cause.

January 23, 2008 I dismissed the Captain from further duty and joined a program to learn how to dance again. So many things have changed, become illuminated, hurt like hell, or surpassed my wildest dreams and for all of the experiences I am extremely grateful… the journey is far from over, but thankfully the road is still very long! I am not dancing with complete freedom, but I am dancing and for that I am truly happy.