Dancing
My very first exposure to dancing was when I was a freshman at Garfield. I saw some other folks doing break dancing, I and I was both fascinated and mortified at the same time. Fascinated because it looked awesome; mortified because the aggressive demeanor was overwhelming to me.
The summer between 9th & 10th grade, my mom had discovered Folklife, and more specifically, dancing: contra and Scandinavian in particular. And it was fun! I got exposed to movies such as Strictly Ballroom and Dirty Dancing. Wow did that look like a lot of fun! I went to some of the Scandinavian folk dances. While it was fun to move and interact, the average age was a lot closer to my mom’s than to mine, and that left me a bit uncomfortable. But at least I was on to something.
There weren’t many kids my age that were in to partner dancing at all that I knew of. Other than some dancing with V the summer after graduation and dancing swing to Technotronic at the hypest of hyped non-events ever, prom, I pretty much had to hunker down and wait until I turned 21. ’Cause they had dancing in bars, and you had to be over 21 to get in. I didn’t stop getting carded until my mid-30’s.
I hit 21 halfway through my junior year. Since my birthday was three weeks before finals, I didn’t really test the whole get-out-and-dance thing until the next semester started in January.
Having watched Dirty Dancing and Strictly Ballroom like 5 times each, I had a pretty good idea of what was required in order to communicate movement while dancing. It took me about six weeks of going out 3–4 nights/week, trying things, finding what worked, and getting to a point where I could ask someone to dance with me, show them a few things, and we’d both be able to have a good time.
Along the way I made a few prominent discoveries: in the context of dancing, you can walk up to a complete stranger, ask them to dance, and most often, they say yes! Some people balked at not knowing what they were doing, and often a grin with “don’t let that stop you!” did the trick. And then, touch. Beautiful, human, touch. For three and a half minutes.
People complemented me, saying, “you’re a good teacher!”
People smiled at me.
People had fun with me. This was more or less revolutionary. I had found something that nourished my soul.
And most often, these people wanted to dance with me again.
I went out 3 and 4 nights a week for the rest of the semester. When finals came around, I “did the responsible thing” and focused on my finals. I died. I died so hard that I decided next time, I was going to continue going dancing, even during finals. And I did; I found dancing incredibly rejuvenating.
Over time I took some West Coast Swing classes, which added to the variety of things I was able to do. I found that a lot of teachers seemed to teach from a “do this, then this” kind of a left-brain sort of follow-my-directions sort of thing, which was very different than my empirical improvise-creative-play that I loved so much. Classes had their place; I was at home on the social floor.
The city where I was going to college was very much an indoor town. Outside, everyone was 1000-yard stare; indoors & with a drink in their hand, they were the most friendly people ever. The particular bar I’d settled on held perhaps 120 people, and only 10 of them ever came to the same place more than once. Every night was a new adventure with new people! I found 4–5 people each night who I enjoyed dancing with and mostly stuck with them, plus the other regulars. I did this for the rest of the time I was in school, which included a 5th year because I switched majors after freshman year.
I didn’t ever go home with anyone. Not that I didn’t want to or that it didn’t come up — once I crashed a bachelorette party, and after a fun night of dancing, one of the women pulled me aside and said, “we’d love to take you home with us, but the problem is this is the last one of our group that’s getting married. We don’t have anyplace we can put you; she’s going home to her fiancee, and the rest of us have husbands at home.” Missed it by || that much. Generally, I was more than clueless how to play that game and it wasn’t worth risking a blowup like the two others. I was getting a lot out of simply enjoying the moments of connection and kinesthetic conversation that were right there. There was too much to lose, and I still didn’t have any clue how to bridge the gap between “hot damn” and “oh god!!”
I had finally found a place where I could be and express and be valued and enjoyed and have fun and touch and get complimented and receive attention and it was all safe and good and healthy. I think that was the first time I could consistently relax since the days of my childhood best friend, Noriaki, in early elementary school.
Next up: Revelation
