Today’s Prompt: Step
When I was younger, I felt an impatience with the complainant nostalgia of older folks about vanished ways of social interaction. These folks, it seemed to me, failed to see what was gained by whatever had taken its place. Now that I am older myself, however, I see that some extinctions are not so benign. One loss that has been slow in coming and was already on its last legs when I was born is dancing. Social dancing.
Dancing is not about the steps even if a dance has very prescribed steps like a traditional square dance or the Electric Slide, the execution is about display and interaction. Dance allows for sexual display and reduction of personal barriers that was part of old courtship rituals. One reason these have gone out of fashion is that one can tell a great deal about someone’s sexual style by how they dance. I think this is why guys don’t like to dance so much. They don’t like that they might reveal a lack of sexual finesse. Interestingly, today’s very explicit dance forms reveal much less about a person’s sexual manner. All one has to do is mimic sex to the beat standing alone or simply looking at one’s partner. The instinct can take over, unlike with codified dancing where a communication between partners is essential. A person who cannot lead or one who cannot follow reveals a block in responsiveness to the intimate cues of another. I’m not a fan of the man always getting to lead, but in dance, I have never felt that the man was “in charge.” We are partners or the dance fails. I happily cede the lead to men in this area of my life, the way I would in digging holes for fence posts in the yard.
HOW THIS WORKS: I have a jar of nouns. I pick one at random and post it. If I’ve done this right, none of the prompts will be something you’re excited to write about. The excitement comes through what you find as you write about the commonplace.
By the end of the day, write a minimum of 250 words but no more than 500 instigated by the noun.
Tomorrow, I will post my effort here and make a new post for whatever word comes out of the jar next. You are invited to post your writing or link to it in the comments so others can read it. Visit yesterday’s prompt to see what showed up there, whether you wrote your own or posted it.
You can comment without contributing. However: No critiques, please, but discussion of the process most welcome.
