Ballroom dancing
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The look of love?  Or is it just plain old fear?!

(Posted by Gayle)

Tonight we took the next step in our journey with ballroom dancing (thanks Dixie!)  Ron and I enrolled in a beginners class here in Dallas.  So for the next 5 Thursdays we’ll be tearing up the dance floor and learning ballroom basics.  We learned how to swing dance from YouTube and a private lesson at the same studio for the wedding of our friends Dixie and Jeff.  We even attended classes on the ship during our recent trans-atlantic cruise, but tonight we had yet another first… dancing with different partners.  During the cruise, Ron was experiencing some seasickness and had to leave one of our classes.  Dixie offered up Jeff as a sacrificial lamb, to be my dancing partner and much as I love Jeff, I declined.  I just wasn’t comfortable enough in my own skin to try “it” with a new partner.  After all I have the same partner for over 22 years now.

Tonight was a different story.  We learned the basic rumba steps individually, we tried it with our partner, and then the instructor said….ROTATE (not spin), but ROTATE.  Women were to move to the right and dance with the next man in line.  So I took a deep breath and rotated into the arms of a nice looking gentleman.  We made eye contact and then it happened….

I was staring into deep brown pools of fear – perhaps even terror.  He was no longer a 40 something year old man.  It was as if he morphed into a 13 year old right before my eyes.  Now don’t get me wrong, I was feeling my own fear, but I’ve had years of practice in “bucking up.”  I’ve acted on the stage, led workshops, held the hands of the dying, and met new people in the midst of the worst times in their lives who were counting on me to know what to say to help them survive.  I’ve mastered “looking confident.”

So there we are staring at each other I’m 13 pretending to be 51, he’s just 13 – awkward, totally uncomfortable in his skin.  He’s having what I call an “Adam and Eve” moment.  You know… being in the garden of Eden feeling the love one minute and in the next second  terrified – buck noodle (the term for naked in the family of one of our kids,) totally embarrassed and acutely aware of his inadequacy.  Much to both of our surprises we managed the basic rumba box step.  He was visibly relieved (so was 1.)  No feet were stomped, no bones broken, no vomit spewed.  Whew….

“ROTATE.”  I move on and there’s another 13 year old boy standing in front of me (this one is 20 something and totally terrified.)  I’m feeling a bit like Mother Teresa at this point.  I want to fluff his bangs and tell him it’s going to be okay.  I smile instead.  ”5, 6, 7, 8″ (Ron wants to know what happened to 1, 2, 3, and 4) and we’re dancing again.  This boy/man in front of me is counting and sweating, but he’s doing it and so am I.

“ROTATE”.  The next boy/man is a happy sort, but it’s still there in his eyes – fear.  You can almost smell it and yet again he surprises himself and nothing breaks, twists, stomps, or spews.  And so it goes for the rest of the hour.  I occasionally reconnect with Ron who is beaming more like a 16 year old who just scored a date with the most popular cheerleader in school.  He’s feeling confident and even somewhat capable.  He’s been able to guide one woman into taking much needed smaller steps and another woman has complimented his ability to lead.  Albeit he’s covered in sweat, but his head is high and so is mine.  What a difference two months make. Tomorrow is the two month anniversary of Dixie’s wedding, which coincides with our public dancing debut.  My 66 year old husband is no longer 13.  He’s 16 and full of hope and optimism for the future.  There is promise here and we both feel it.

If I wore a hat, I’d be taking it off to all the brave men in that class tonight.  I think most of them would have preferred to wrestle a lion with their bare hands naked,  but they summoned their courage and figured out how to put their “best feet” forward.  It was a risk and they took it (probably at the prompting of a woman they love – a daughter, wife, or fiancée who wants to dance with him at a wedding.)  I wonder what I’ll see in their eyes next week.  I hope they can see the respect in mine.

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