Dancing Memories

Sometimes these daily prompts just speak to me and I simply must write about the topic. This one is no exception:

What are your earliest and fondest memories of dance?

Music and dancing have been a common thread in my family’s life since I can remember, and the two are intertwined. From dancing in the living room, to learning to two-step with my mom around our house, it was, and is to this day, the soundtrack to life.

I remember cheese-ball videos of lip-syncing and dancing to bad 80’s pop music. I would perform to the trees in the back yard; my “audience”. I would “roller dance” around our driveway for hours. I wanted to be a Fly Girl on In Living Color. Later, when my mom discovered dancing, she would take lessons at a local bar and come home and teach me. I couldn’t wait until the day I would be able to go dancing with all the cool over-21 people. I went to every non-bar grange dance I could. We practiced. My mom taught me other things like how to cook, but she passed on a passion for good music and dancing as well.

Sitting in the local V.F.W. in my early 20s, I was resigned to the fact that I was hanging out with my mom and her friends. I took all the couples dance lessons and everyone danced with everyone else. (This makes you a much better dancer, by the way.) I had finally moved into my first apartment sans roommates and was working and living life.

The instructor (who had become a family friend), walked over and said that there was someone my age. A guy. Not really giving it too much thought, she also went over to the only other girl our age and told her about him. I then watched him ask her to dance first.

“Whatever,” I thought. He’s probably a jerk.

A few songs later he strolls over and asks me to dance. He was not, in fact, a jerk at all. At this point it becomes very corny like an old movie where everything in the background fades and all you can see is this person in front of you. Your limbs get heavy, you’re tongue-tied, your heartbeat races and you feel like you can hardly talk, much less make intelligent and witty conversation.

Apparently whatever I said worked. We dated and were nearly inseparable after that. We danced every chance we got at our favorite country bar. When we were married and moved to Florida, we found a little dance place right on the beach. Fifteen years and 2 kiddos later, we still love music and love to dance. Though we don’t go out dancing as often as we did, I love the way I feel when I dance with my husband. To this day, I get that weak-in-the-knees feeling when he takes my hand for a waltz around our kitchen!