I can’t dance. This is no surprise to anyone who knows me and my sister (who jumped in the air and her husband got this amazing picture) is probably somewhere chuckling. Either I’ve really never been smooth on the dance floor (or anywhere else for that matter) or the constant harassment of much more coordinated friends crushed my confidence in any ability I may have had. I tend to think that it’s a combination, but the deep rooted insecurity keeps me awkwardly lurching around like Elaine from Seinfeild at Weddings.
It’s ok. MMMM- ok, not really. I WANT to dance well. I don’t watch tv shows about dancing because I jealously covet the gracefulness and effortless that I see. I’m not going to go to a dance studio at my age because it would be awkward doing steps with 4 year olds. Which I’ve done before. As a 7th grader and believe me it was just as awkward being the “big” girl in the glass then as it would be now.
But there are times I dance. I twirl and jump and spin and tap dance around my house in tube socks. I dread the day Bear looks at me and says, “just stop…” because I won’t. Bwahahah I am just not hip. (just look at the picture where I was insecurely dressing as a rapper for some party. I changed because it’s just painful to look at. Even now. EEEEESH.)
There is nothing I love more than to turn up my music and just leap around, envisioning myself graceful and breathtaking to watch! and I MAY be breathtaking… but perhaps not in the way that I’d want. 😉 I love old movies and musicals because I can pretend. Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Ethel Merman, Gene Kelly….
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I love the smell of fall. The sweet smell of decaying leaves, the damp earth and the anticipation in the air after a scorching hot Arkansas summer. It’s as though the very ground is sighing with a sleepy pleasure, curling up then stretching out in anticipation of a good winter slumber. I’m jealous- a deep, long uninterrupted sleep, frozen, is the most peaceful thing that I can think of.
I love it when I walk outside and the wind comes in through the trees, sending acorns onto my roof with patters like soft hail and leaves swirling around me like an embrace. I feel stilled, every thought trailing off, every knot of tension in my neck slowly uncurling. There is an adrenaline rush in being outside. A wildness. Feeling the insignificance yet importance of being alive and breathing in and out the sound of the Hebrew word, “Yahweh”.
and I want to dance.