"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..
