Dancing the Rules Away

One silver lining of coronavirus is that Daveen has been cleaning out the garage. She recently found a draft for a piece that I wrote more than thirty years ago. Had I been writing a blog back then, it would have been an entry. That piece is as follows:

I’m forty-nine.  I have never been comfortable with fast dancing.  Actually, I’m afraid of it.

At a big celebration twelve years ago, one of my adult daughters won the fast dance contest.  I was proud of her.  I didn’t dance at all.

Every year my office holds a holiday dance. Most everyone loves it.  I used to dread it.  There’s a lot more fast dancing than slow (which is easier for me and . . . well, slow dancing can be fun).

Though it’s not a big issue in my life I still don’t like to feel left out three or four evenings a year (counting two or three weddings), as I obsess about my fear of fast-dancing.

Five years ago at our holiday office party Karen asked me to fast dance with her and I reluctantly agreed. She was good.  She was also kind.

“You’re doing great,” she said.  Others agreed.  I almost trusted them.  But I knew I didn’t know what I was doing.

My young daughter Ingrid likes to show off.  This evening, between work and dinner, I flopped down on the sofa and she ran up to me. 

I said, “Are you Ingrid?”

“No.”

“Are you Carol?”

“No.”  Laughter.

“Are you Mommy?”

“No.”  More laughter.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Star Dancer.”  Proudly.

“She wants to dance for you,” her older sister explained.

We turned on the radio.  Ingrid danced.  Fast.  Exuberantly.

How could she?  Ingrid had no dance lessons.  She didn’t know the rules.

Fortunately, she didn’t realize there were rules she had to follow.

So Ingrid left the rules where they often belong – in someone else’s mind.

While I wrote this thirty years ago, I still feel the truth at its core. As an editor of Rattle, I have found that children up to about ten years old often write great poetry.  That’s before they realize they are expected to follow some rules, and their natural creativity goes into hiding.

I’m considering a fast-dance with Daveen tonight.  I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know the rules either.

Alan