On Dancing (Discovery for 8/19/09)











Once you stop dancing, you die a little.

            I used to dance all the time.  In my early twenties, we were out at honkytonks every Saturday night.  I ran around with all of my cousins back then.  We never went anywhere without each other.  Even when we weren’t at a bar or a club, we’d find a way to dance. If we were in a restaurant that had a jukebox loaded down with good songs, we’d get up and dance.  Didn’t matter if there wasn’t a dance-floor.  We’d lean our heads back, close our eyes, and listen only to the music.  We danced on the lake bank, in our living rooms, on the wide front porches of our youth. 

            Once I settled down and had children, the only dancing I ever did was with a baby on my hip.  Some of my favorite memories are of dancing with my daughters.  I’d slow-dance them to sleep, drawing in that scent that can only be found at the nape of your daughter’s neck.  When they got older, I fast-danced with them.  We used to dance every single night, the music turned up as loud as it would go.  I taught them how to clog.  I taught them that the best dancing song in the entire world is “Hurts So Good” by Mellencamp.  I taught them to not care what anyone thinks when they are dancing, to just listen to the music. 

            My girls are getting bigger now, so we don’t dance as much as we used to, and nowadays it’s more that they demand that I dance for them and they sit and hold their stomachs laughing as they make me dance to songs they think I probably won’t like.  Tonight was like that.  They made me dance to “Diva” by Beyonce, which is a song I would most likely never dance to unless someone was making me.  But I did, for them.  I closed my eyes, leaned my head back, tried my best to listen to the music.  There wasn’t the same attachment to the music that I might have gotten from Mellencamp, but I found the beat, and went with it, much to the girls’ delight.  They laughed until tears streamed.  But I didn’t care.

            The only real dancing I ever do these days is at the square dances that pop up occasionally around home, or more often, at writing workshops where I teach.  Less than a month ago I was cutting a rug up at the Hindman Settlement School at a big square dance.  Some of my best friends were there, so that made it even better.  Square dancing is the most communal kind of dancing.  You are forced to touch others, to speak to them, to learn the way they move and move with them.  Square dancing makes you realize that you are all dancing together, working together, helping one another.

            In some strange way, I remember every single person I ever danced with, whether it was at the Moose Lodge, the Maverick Club, the Cumberland Falls Square Dance, the Dixie Café, or any other.  Most of them don’t remember me, but I recall them sometimes, all those strangers and lovers, all those people I spent four or five minutes of my life with during a great song.  It’s a connecting thing, dancing. 

            I’m in my late 30s now, so some people might say that’s too old to be out dancing.  But I don’t intend to stop anytime soon.  In fact, I intend to do it even more.  I’ll just close my eyes, listen to the music, not care what anyone thinks, and be a little more alive in the process.  


  


Comments

Sandra Eileen said…
Yes - dancing is a connecting thing - and so is music - good one, "It hurts so good" by John Cougar.

As always, thanks for sharing yourself in your writing.

Sandra
Anonymous said…
Those will be delicious memories for your daughters. Keep dancing...

Reggie
Unknown said…
Sounds like you have a little bit of Anneth in your blood!
Anonymous said…
I can't dance, and I know the reason for that is that, for me, it's very hard to let go. The way you've taught your daughters to. That's a priceless lesson to have learned, and to teach.
Anonymous said…
Here's an idea on a discovery for you. How about discovering the winners of a contest that should have been done August 1?
Silas House said…
Dear Anonymous,
I already chose the winners for the contest, so if you haven't received word yet you should check with whomever is in charge of the contest. And here's a discovery I made a long time ago: patience is the best friend a writer can have.
Anne Roberts said…
Keep dancing--I too use to dance at the Moose Lodge when my brothers' band played there--many years ago--to dance is to live. Anne Roberts
Anonymous said…
Although there are a few songs (such as Cash's 'One Piece at a Time,' or 'Kung Foo Fighting', anything by Squirrel Nut Zippers, etc.--these are dangerous drastic fierce dances) that I am willing to dance to in my kitchen with my boyfriend...I do not dance in public. I am the one who sits at a concert barely tapping the foot...but bursting at the seams to react. I would like to learn how to heal my inhibitions. I commend those of you who dance anywhere! I love the whole 'dance like no one is watching'...but I am too paranoid.
Anonymous said…
I laughed with someone recently about the fact it doesn't matter who you were, your kids always found you incredibly funny (when you weren't trying to be!). I could relate to the part in your tale where your kids laughed at you dancing. Why do kids always find their parents so hilarious?

Amanda from OZ

Popular posts from this blog

What I Read This Year

Favorite Books (Today)

Books of 2016