Just when the days are at their shortest, when the winter chill accosts me each morning and when you’d think that a nasty seasonal affective disorder should be setting in, I sit in my chair with my laptop feeling a very bearable lightness of being. Though close to the night before Christmas, it’s not visions of sugar plums dancing in my head that are lifting my mood. Rather, it’s Irving Berlin’s song from White Christmas, “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing”. The movie has been on TV every day this week. If you missed it yesterday at 9, you could catch it again at 11. I watched just enough of both showings to wake up this morning with that song playing in my head. And just like the TV programming, it’s been replaying all day.
Things that you would not do at home come nat’rally on the floor
Barbara and I took beginning ballroom dancing classes this fall. Waltz, foxtrot, swing, megengue and the cha cha cha. Irving, in his wisdom, did not say that the dancing would come “nat’rally”. It’s the other stuff that does. The touching, holding and smiling that are not the norm for any 50+ year old couple I know, just happen. As Vicki Baum said, “There are shortcuts to happiness and dancing is one of them”. Strangely, I really liked the discipline of formal dance our instructors stressed in their classes. Less flower child, more atten-hut. Even Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing taught the importance of a rigid carriage, holding the arms up to create a personal space in firm contact with ones partner, the rigidity allowing even minimal pressure to be transferred and communicated. He chided Jennifer Grey, “No spaghetti arms”. I repeated that same line to Barbara many times during our sessions and, thanks Patrick, felt so virile. While the male is leading and feeling so full of himself, the female has the more difficult task of figuring out what he is going to do before he does it. As Ginger Rogers said, “I do everything the man does, only backwards and in high heels!” And she looked great doing it.
For dancing soon becomes romancing
It’s no secret why orthodox Jews, reactionary Christians (think Footloose) and fundamentalist Muslims prohibit dancing between the sexes. Put a boy and a girl together, add some music, start them moving in concert and it’s only natural that biology take over. That is every bit as true for the restrained waltz as it is for the hip swaying cha cha. The male creates his space, the female hers. The tension between them sets the romance to an emotional simmer, a much better temperature for a tender, long lasting romance. George Bernard Shaw said it best, calling dancing “the perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire”.
When you hold a girl in your arms that you’ve never held before
I’m going to leave that line alone…it’s been so long I just can’t remember.
Even guys with two left feet
Come out alright if the girl is sweet
If by chance their cheeks should meet
While dancing
Proving that the best things happen
While you dance
Cute song. Cute story. Maybe a bit saccharine for my taste, but the holidays are almost upon us and what’s more, for the next three days I’ll be watching Miracle on 34th Street. I’ve got a ways to go before I’m ready for Natalie Wood’s “I believe…I believe…it’s silly, but I believe”.
Now for the ironic twist. The week after our dance classes ended BV had foot surgery. Despite the rumors, I did not break it, though I did upon occasion step on her toes. No cheek to cheek holiday parties or New Years tux for me. Talk about mixed messages! She’s lucky that I know that “faith is believing when common sense tells you not to”. Happy Holidays friends. Keep the music playing in your heads. Start tapping your feet. Stand up. Create some tension. The best things will happen. Just let yourself dance right into the New Year.
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