Close your eyes....

I can vividly remember the first night...

They sipped pink champagne in long fluted glasses and in between the vinyl grooves, they set their drinks on the mahongony table...

And it left rings in the morning....

She swirled and twirled to Ray Charles, Bobby Vinton, Louis Armstrong, Chubby Checkers, The Tijuana Brass....and just for fun...The Grasshoppers....He dipped, and spun....and laughed....

I sat on the couch and watched. Long gangly legs in a pink velvet dress and blonde bangs chopped off to match my Barbie Doll. Kimbies and I had to be very, very quiet, or we had to go to bed....

I barely breathed.

On the blue carpeted floor, they shimmied and watootsied and "Love potioned Number 9'd" each other.....

And then I grew up....

I went to first grade, and fifth, and senior prom. I fell in love and out of love. And got married. And divorced. I raised my babies. I danced on coffee tables, balconies....and beaches. I danced in empty bars, at concerts, in traffic, and in the kitchen....

But I never forgot...
they might have, but I didn't...

The magic of that night...

Of them closing their eyes and feeling the music....

I believe in Magic...

Spinning....

"Stop talking and dance with me".....I fought it, hands perched on my hips....swaying to the music, because I just can't help it, but I wasnt' going to do it. I bit my bottom lip. We had done this a thousand times before....Bob Segar, Eric Clapton, unknown cover bands, Rolling Stones, The Eagles....

Hands perched on my hips..."I'm not doing it".......

But we went anyway, onto the dance floor, my arms crossed, business style, slow dancing with the crowd. Nothing special. Nothing fancy; might as well be another fly on the wall, because I couldn't do it our way, deep and low, throaty and all Aretha Frankliny, like we used to, because we aren't.....or because we just can't, even if we are.... things have changed.

And he so desperately wanted the last dance to be the perfect dance and it sucked and I told him so.....And he remembered our first dance and our first kiss and our first hello and he told me so...And I denied them all.

Because we never had a first date, a first kiss, a first dance...we had been there all along, the coming together all to familiar, homecoming for the soul... And how could we have a last dance, a public display of "The End" when we had no beginning that we could place a name to.....

And he agreed.

And we walked barefoot into the ocean.....out the double doors....into the tomorrows we keep trying on for size.

On Friday night, I pushed the double doors open, and stepped onto the dirty neon dancefloor....Christmas lights dangling from the ceiling beams, flickering on and off without rhythm. Their twisty green wires crooked like chicken bones strung together on a string. I took a deep breath. A long blink. My week-end smile started squiggling, sneaking onto my face. Arms reaching. Octopus arms. My friends... pulling me in. I heard the music in my chest, vibrating, waiting....

And when the gray haired handsome stranger with the Clint Eastwood voice, leaned in and asked me to dance....I muttered "Rolling Stones".....and he nodded. I danced up and down and in circles, in my own little rock and roll world, and smiled occassionally at his feet. "Do you swing?" he asked on the way off the floor, and I threw my head up and laughed at the green chicken bones dangling, sparkling, flashing over head "No!" I'm laughing, "Are you kidding me?" "The Rolling Stones Girl?" And he laughed..... and said....

"Come along for the ride...."

"I can't follow....
petulance creeping into my smile...

"Come along for the ride...."

And I did. Twirling, flying, swirling, dipping, diving, sliding, laughing, seat-belted in by his arms....

Sometimes.
at the fair,
you have to dance with strangers..

At the barre......

I wanted to be a ballerina. I really did. "Seeesopewfect!" Mrs. DiMarco swooned, cigarette breath on red lips, into my face. My face started to blotch, to swell. I knew I was going to be tortured, jabbed with those long pointy fingernails, suffocated slowly. It was so hot in here. And my skint knee was bleeding through my pink tights, an abstract orange blossum spreading there. Why did I use all the bandaids to make book-binding for my soon to be best seller: "The Mystery of The Moving Pictures".......

I was five.

I wasn't the oldest and I wasn't the youngest. I was next to the thinnest. "It's never too late to start, dahling, you have the body of the swan at night......" she purred as she wrapped the sepia colored measuring tape around my neck, my chest, my 18 year old waist, my thighs, my shins, my ankles. Her teeth showed a little as I climbed up on the scales. Her teeth showed a lot three months later. And she hissed. And pounded that damn stick on the floor "One and two and one and two and one and two and three"......"Tuck your buttocks in, and suck your stomach in and point those damn toes!" I couldn't even pat my head and rub my tummy at the same time........

I was not quite 19.

There is safety in numbers. Three tuition bills. Three checks on the first of the month. Three late bloomers at the barre. They took our money. Kimbies was just there for the sport. She couldn't be bothered to be fitted for shoes, and wore pink Isotoner slippers instead. They let her. I hung from the barre. Stretched. Flew through the air. After class, we would stop in at the Oyster Bar next door, for raw ones on the half shells and a few cold brews, all balletesque in our leotards and cut-offs. It was wonderful. And then we got the bright idea, to meet at the Oyster Bar first. Before class. To loosen up. That was wonderful ,too. In our world.

We got kicked out.

I was 26.

He held me at the waist for just a moment. And twirled me around and around and around. A pretty plastic toy on the top of a blue velvet jewelry box. The band was banging out a remix of "Oh Suzie Q, I like the way you walk, I like the way you talk, I like the things you do"..... His eyes traveled back in time, to that year, to another girl, to another world. And I dreamed of being free.

It was just another Friday night at the bar. And he felt like he was 21 again.....

And I wanted to be a ballerina......