Dance Night!

I can remember when the very thought of dancing would knot up my stomach. I would completely skip outings with friends for fear of the dreaded Dance. In my mind, dancing could only be accomplished if drunk, and if ever I were to combine the two (drinking and dancing) it was always disastrous.

I was raised on a farm, where, if feeling really randy, one might tap their toe when listening to Hank Williams. When I was in grade school, I tried (too hard) to be cool. I had a polyester shirt, bell bottoms, and I even stole my mom's platform shoes. I went to a 7th grade dance and really tried hard to wow the crowd. At one point, a circle formed around me, everyone clapping and urging me on...I thought I was the next John Travolta. (Later, I realized they were laughing at me, that I was the spectacle!) Coming down off of that experience wounded me for life. I would not even attempt a line dance, a square dance, not even a folk dance. (I would probably have even shunned a lap dance, so against dancing had I become!) I sided with fundamentalists that felt dancing to be the gyrations of the devil himself--It had to be bad if I couldn't do it. I was completely inept at it, so very, very awful at dancing that I even hated dance music! (That explains my country music period, I guess.)

NOW I HAVE KIDS and they have taught me that dancing is just busting loose. Every Monday night we dance, uninhibited, for over an hour. It is pure joyous expression in body of soul. We might look funny to anyone from the outside, but we have some of the most excellent fun! I'll never satisfy a judge on "Dancing with the Stars;" heck, I cannot even please my own internal critic. The only way to dance is with abandon, thumbing one's nose and wiggling one's arse at anyone even the slightest bit judgmental.

Tonight, we delve into disco, and after that, some kid's music CD's.