He was shmoo-shaped and probably in his late sixties. Round and doughy in the middle. His hair was whitish grey and his not so bushy beard masked a soft but protruding jawline. He had one small hoop earring and wore an olive green tee tucked in to black slacks. His sneakers were heather grey with white soles. His movements were something between a slow shuffle and an easy glide. He was one of the only people dancing. He might have been stoned, he certainly seemed happy. At times, he would slow his dance to a pause, maybe raise his arms just above his waist and then start to sway back in to the music, a jam band groove under soft red stage lights.
Last night, my friend Stacy and I went to a bar called B-Side to hear the band Devil Train. Watching this guy dance put a smile on my face – he didn’t seem to have a care in the world. His movements were both fluid and awkward, he seemed practiced at letting go. He was overweight but unburdened. He had come in wearing what looked like a bowler hat, ready for a night out. I started to jot down some notes, I wanted to be able to capture the moment, his look, the lightness of being. I commented on him to Stacy – said I love this guy, he’s just out there doing his thing. Stacy said “come on” and wanted me to dance. I declined, and when she cajoled a bit, I made a really tight fist and said, this…. this is my sphincter. I would have needed at least another beer or two and maybe a shot to feel comfortable enough to dance. Instead, I sat composing in my head the image, the night, and all the reasons I don’t dance.
I’ve never been much of a dancer. I always feel stiff and awkward. Drinks help. In middle school I went to dances. The boys all stood around, not dancing. I did less of that in high school, because by then I was already opting out by not even going. Stacy’s insistence on getting me out on the dance floor (this isn’t the first time she’s tried) reminded me of a roller skating party that I had gone to. I had never been roller skating before, I was terrified of looking like a fool and not being in control. It was so much easier to look cool and not skate, and my friends put so much pressure on me to join them that I think I snapped and walked away. This was probably in sixth grade… I remember being mad and on the verge of tears – hating all of it. It was the fear of not knowing what to do or how to do it, an extreme discomfort. It cemented in me the desire to hide in a crowd, the desire to never be the center of attention. It set up that internal conflict of wanting to be seen while also not wanting to be seen, a hiding in plain sight.
In college I drank a fair amount – no more or less than my friends, and maybe a little more than the average student at your run of the mill big, state, party school. The only dancing I did then was at crowded parties, drunk and listening to bands. The dancing was more akin to jostling around with a bunch of people, not quite slam dancing, but also not rhythmic. For a large part of my adult life, the only dancing I felt comfortable with was the slow side to side step and spin of your typical slow dance only to be trotted out at proms and weddings. A few times during my marriage, my wife and I would dance in one of the rooms in the house or the apartment, our attempts at romance and connecting.
There were a few dancing experiences, at music events when I was mesmerized by a free spirit, usually with flowing hair and lithe body. There was a woman I met when I visited St. John’s College in Annapolis and another woman down in Holly Springs Mississippi. These encounters were more like visions, colorful and hazy and just out of reach. The woman at St. John’s went off with another guy. The one in Holly Springs became a bit of a drunken mess who lost her phone and then disappeared – her friends didn’t seem overly concerned – she does this all the time. During these times, I was able to focus my attention on someone else’s movements, losing self-awareness, loosening the sphincter, getting lost in the crowd. Thinking back, I can’t remember how I danced or if I liked it.
My favorite dancing experience was two summers ago. On a hot late July day, my ex-fiancee and I went to the R&B picnic at Snipes Farm. I had been going to this blues festival for about 15 years, almost always solo, seldom dancing. More than half-way through the show, it started to rain. Without thinking, the two of us got up from our seats and made our way towards the stage where we joined a small throng of people who had all decided to embrace the weather, each in their own ritualistic happy rain dance. We laughed as the rain tickled and cooled, we moved with the lightness of not giving a fuck, we looked at each other with open mouthed smiles and the intense gaze of two people falling fast in love. We were free and present in the moment. We danced one or two times after that – slow dances under the moonlight on the back deck. I remember one time, we went to a fundraiser to hear some local bands. A slow song came on and I stood up and offered my hand. She didn’t want to dance. Nobody else was dancing, we would have been conspicuously visible. I was out of my comfort zone in asking, I hate being the center of attention. She does too. It was more a rejection of the moment (which I completely understood) than a rejection of me. But in the span of a few months, easy and carefree had been replaced by the discomfort of really being seen. I think that’s when the dancing stopped.
I couldn’t tell any of this to Stacy. It was loud and the story is stupidly and unnecessarily complicated. It’s the thinking that makes me pause, or tighten up. There are a lot of parallels to writing. Learning to be comfortable in my own skin and my own way of moving through the world takes many forms. There are days I want to care less, show more abandon; days when I want to think less and just do. I write, frequently, about being the person I want to find. I learned a lot about that concept from B. There were times I saw in her a person who moved through the world with grace and lightness, radiating warmth. In her, I saw a lot of who I wanted to be.
At 45, I’m just learning to dance, learning to let go. Last night, I sat sideways at the bar, watching a fat, old, happy belly of a man who was free and fluid. I thought about my hang ups. I thought about thinking about dancing. I thought about what it would take to get me to that point. My foot tapped, my head nodded along. These small and imperceptible movements were quietly giving way to something deeper inside – certainly not a rave, not even a groundswell, but a movement nonetheless… a small internal step away from the gymnasium wall, a desire to give it a try, a longing to be back in that field in the hot July rain, laughing and moving; free and a little drunk on the moment.