Remembering how to dance.
I hated ballet lessons when I was a little girl, and I quit at the first given opportunity. My teacher, Miss Bobbie Jean, was a bony, little old woman with jet black hair piled high atop her head and a grinning jaw that popped far away from her face. She wasn't fond of me, I think. She thought that I was a klutz, which is true, and not bendable and stretchy and blonde enough, I imagine. I couldn't do a split, and I was always out of step with the rest of the girls. I did like the costumes, but I hated everything else about it.
Which is a shame. I think that I would have liked dancing if I hadn't been forced to stay in line and do what everyone else was doing.
At least one of the people who reads this entry has seen me dance, which is a rarity and generally involves copious amounts of hard liquor. And he is probably shuddering from the memory because I'm not very good at it. In the right state of mind (read: intoxicated), I begin to feel like dancing is the appropriate and even mandatory thing to do. I spin out of control like a whirling dervish and generally make a spectacle of myself. This sort of behavior is now far in the past as I don't drink copious amounts of hard liquor anymore, and I think that a part of me misses the excuse to whirl.
Lately, I've been dancing when no one but my little boy is at home. He, of course, thinks that I'm the next best thing to Mata Hari or Paula Abdul or Zorba the Greek. I have a particular skirt that I like to wear that fans out around me, and I forego shoes altogether. My style is a combination of slow-witted ballet and mentally-challenged modern dance. Klezmer music with accordians and violins and clarinets is my favorite accompaniment. I can really kick up my heels to that - though I still can't do a split. I'm not good at it - that hasn't changed - but, since my only audience is a kid who isn't even two and can't walk yet (read: escape) much less dance, I don't have to be good at it. I only have to like the way that it feels. Which I do. It's a lot of fun, and it's another one of those things that I forgot about with age.
I think that I forgot about a lot of fun things that didn't involve bars or...well, bars. And it's nice to rediscover them. I've even taken up somersaults and standing on my head for no good reason.
Which is a shame. I think that I would have liked dancing if I hadn't been forced to stay in line and do what everyone else was doing.
At least one of the people who reads this entry has seen me dance, which is a rarity and generally involves copious amounts of hard liquor. And he is probably shuddering from the memory because I'm not very good at it. In the right state of mind (read: intoxicated), I begin to feel like dancing is the appropriate and even mandatory thing to do. I spin out of control like a whirling dervish and generally make a spectacle of myself. This sort of behavior is now far in the past as I don't drink copious amounts of hard liquor anymore, and I think that a part of me misses the excuse to whirl.
Lately, I've been dancing when no one but my little boy is at home. He, of course, thinks that I'm the next best thing to Mata Hari or Paula Abdul or Zorba the Greek. I have a particular skirt that I like to wear that fans out around me, and I forego shoes altogether. My style is a combination of slow-witted ballet and mentally-challenged modern dance. Klezmer music with accordians and violins and clarinets is my favorite accompaniment. I can really kick up my heels to that - though I still can't do a split. I'm not good at it - that hasn't changed - but, since my only audience is a kid who isn't even two and can't walk yet (read: escape) much less dance, I don't have to be good at it. I only have to like the way that it feels. Which I do. It's a lot of fun, and it's another one of those things that I forgot about with age.
I think that I forgot about a lot of fun things that didn't involve bars or...well, bars. And it's nice to rediscover them. I've even taken up somersaults and standing on my head for no good reason.
posted by Autumn at 12:14 PM
3 Comments:
I can relate to the dancing only under the influence of copius amounts of hard liquor method. Afriend of mine recently got married and, as is the tradition of all good guy friends, we all got tanked at his reception, which was acceptable as drinking is a competitive sport in his family, and suffice it to say that there are now pictures of myself and one of my life long friends doing a routine on one of the hotels tables. Unfortunately, between the two of us, there is about 450 lbs of weight atop a table designed to hold maybe 100 so draw your own conclusions.
Fortunately, there are no extant photos of my drinking and dancing days, though some friends can draw pretty graphic pictures when they tell the tales. I hope you didn't break anything.
maybe a few laws but other than that........
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