Observations from the Edge of the Room

The music was vivacious—gentle, compelling, with a beat that became one with the sounds of the polished black shoes that slid across the floor. The smooth voice sang with a sadness that oddly did not mirror any regret. All around the room spun a whirling menagerie of people donned in the soft, billowy colors that usually grace only sunsets. The men and women dancing had evidently forgotten all else but their partners and the music. Their minds forsook thoughts of the worries that lay just outside the door, and they stepped lightly together, perfectly, as if their two bodies could not remember having ever been separated from the dancer that held them, had never been different entities. As the music shifted, so did the dancers and their perspectives. The women’s chins slowly rose as they lost themselves in the fantastical world they had never dared to imagine could actually exist. The men’s grip became slightly tighter as all former preconceptions that there was no desire for them to lead fell swiftly away. The man wanted to be the lady’s gentleman. The woman wanted to be the gentleman’s lady. It was a flawless picture of what was originally intended for man and woman on the very first morning earth saw. Beauty.

The time was 12:30 in the morning. They had been dancing since their Oscar party had ended at 11. Some of them would set their alarms for 4:37 a.m. They did not care or even notice. It mattered only that life was different now. The smallest smiles were detectable on the lips of the women, for they could feel the tenderness and persistence the men led with. “I need you like a heart needs a beat,” was a phrase in the song that the dancers hardly heard yet affirmed with each step they took, for there would be no discovery if not together. How could they dance alone?

Note: None of you from home remember me as a dancer. In fact, you probably remember a girl too timid to even try dancing. “I have the build of a hockey player, not a dancer,” and “I’ve got two left feet,” were sayings you most likely heard if you hung around me at all and the subject of dancing came up. I always tried to leave looking graceful to my younger sister. However, something has changed within me. Something is not the same. Through a series of fortunate events of which I am not at liberty to speak, I have taken part in ballroom dancing lessons. There is nothing I enjoy more than dancing an entire night away with salsa, foxtrot, swing, and especially the waltz and the rumba. So don’t be weirded out by what you just read. I’m learning a lot through dancing. Last night, the dancing floor began to be less and less crowded until there were only two couples left. I sat and watched and was very inspired. So, all my dancing compadres, thank you for letting me study you last night!