I don't go out dancing anymore, it makes me sad.
Perhaps it's because of my age? I'm over 30. Actually I'm over 35 now. Do you remember when you could NEVER imagine being THAT old? Remember when you were a kid and you thought, "Wow my parents are so damn old!" when in fact they were probably only 35-40 at tops. (well with the exception of my own mother and father that had me so late in their life that my father could have passed for my grandfather when I was just entering junior high school.
My own parents never danced, they never went anywhere together in a romantic fashion. The only thing they did together was on Saturday nights was head to the Moose Lodge or the Elks to play bingo. Now and then there would be a function there for the families and we would get gussied up, (that meant no T-shirts) combed hair and headed there to Polka and eat a lot of Kluski noodles, sauerkraut and Polish sausages.
Back then I would be so excited to dance. The floor was a shiny parquet and there was a stage with a heavy brocade maroon curtain and there were silver microphones on stands waiting for future acts. Further back on the stage stood a bingo ball cage and a podium. Up above, spinning and sending beams of reflective colorful light was a disco ball. To a little girl like myself this was truly quite the experience, it was a grand party every time we came to the club.
My parents would sit at their table, plates heaped high and glasses half full with who knows what. Now in my adult years I really don't remember if they drank cocktails because they never did at home even though there were a few bottles in the house they never drank in front of the kids. I always saw them drinking coffee, awful instant coffee that left them with stale breath while they smoked cigarette after cigarette.
Mom would nod with encouragement, tell me to have fun and I would traipse off winding my way through the cramped rows of tables until my dress shoes finally clicked onto that floor. The sound excited me and the rhythm of the music flowed in me. It didn't matter what kind of music was playing because I was ready to show off no matter what. I loved the attention given to me.
Toes touching the floor and my arms raising up I swirled and twirled, weaving my way around the dancing couples. There would be a Polka and suddenly I found my tiny hands grasped by a kind pair of weathered hands, so large they engulfed mine. I'd look up to see a wide toothy smile, all dentures and dimples. In these days, the older gentlemen wore their hair a little bit long on top and it would flop over their foreheads, very rakish.
A Polka could be immediately followed by a tender Country two-step, I was ready to learn these also but I couldn't ever quite get it down because the sound of it sorta hurt my ears. Makes me giggle these days, I still can't stand the shit. Not a good situation now 20 plus years later and I'm smack dab in the center of Texas.
In my early 20s I used to hit a club in town, it was new and the hot place to go. Well, it was actually the only place to go. 3 nights a week it was country music and 2 nights it was rock and top 40 dance. Those nights it was rock, I went alone I let all my inhibitions go, it was so freeing it took me back to my days as a child even though I didn't really have all of the eyes on me I wanted; I did have plenty.
Now I dance alone in my living room, no one sees me except the cats and dogs. If anyone is looking over the security fence its a pervert Peeping Tom.
He will experience nothing but true expression. I won't pull up a chair and yank a line to have water splash upon me like the scene in Flashdance...and I'm not going to do a glissade through the room like a ballerina but I WILL drop it like it's hot...
'cuz baby got back!
