For a Dancer

It never occurred to me when I was young(er) that not everyone dances well, or even at all. Not to brag or anything, but I grew up with a natural sense of rhythm and music--an attribute of my French Creole blood, I suspect--and, in the way of the young, assumed that it was something everyone has. Because when you're young, what's normal for you extends (in youthful logic) into being what's normal for everyone.

It was not a theory I had many opportunities to test, mind you. In middle school and high school, I was never asked to the dances or the prom. And even if I did attend, alone or with a group of girlfriends, I was not asked to dance with anyone. I mostly sat or roamed around at the edge of the action, talked to a few people and itched to slink back home and bury my head beneath my pillow.

As an aside, please don't try to sell me that old line of how the boys "were intimidated by me" and that's why they never approached me. I don't buy that for a second. The truth is, starting in 7th grade (which is when I joined the Lewisville ISD), I was thrown into a society where I knew no one, nor did I fully understand the interactions of my peers. I'd been yanked first from the school system where I'd grown up--the place where I'd had the same people in my classes, particularly my Gifted and Talented cohorts--and then from the small private school where I'd made a niche for myself. But once I hit LISD, I floundered. Everyone seemed to know each other already, have a history, whatever. And they were all so very different from me. I ended up keeping to myself, which undoubtedly made me come off as "cold" when really I was wrapped in my own sort of mortification at my lack of social skills. But anyway, that's why I never got asked out, or asked to join anyone for anything. Everyone thought I was some kind of snob, and the only people who liked me were my teachers, which was probably just another kiss of death.

Okay, anyway, so it wasn't in public school that I determined not everyone can dance. It was at college. I attended exactly three functions (that I can recall, anyway) at which people danced. And I was actually asked to dance! Which flustered me a little because I'd never really danced with other people before. And so my painful education began, including a truly embarrassing moment in which I spun my [male, natch] partner! Yikes.

I did have a moment of triumph, however. One that told me that it's not just my imagination that I can dance well, at least when I'm dancing alone. They were playing "Under the Sea" (yes, the one from The Little Mermaid) and I'd found a spot on the dance floor in the back where I could move unobserved, or so I thought. Or maybe I was just mostly trying to stay out of the way of the couples on the floor; I don't really remember. But whatever the circumstances, I began dancing away, eyes closed, moving to the beats and rhythms. And then . . . I started to hear clapping. Not applause, but the regular kind of clapping people do when they clap along to music. I opened my eyes and saw a ring of people standing around me, watching me dance and clapping as if to cheer me on.

Jimmy Buffett has a song about the perfect partner, which, in terms of dancing, I guess I've never found. To this day, I do prefer to dance alone. My husband doesn't dance, so I get no grief from him about my not particularly wanting to dance with him. I will dance with him, mind you, and I do on the extremely rare occasions when he's willing to do so. Maybe some day, when we're old and the kids are grown, we'll take lessons. In the meantime, though, I'll keep stepping to the beat of my own drum.