I used to dance in high school. I think I may have told you this before, but I’m not sure. I was pretty serious about it too. Pointe shoes, dance camp, the whole nine yards.
Then in college I kept up with it to some extent, but less for serious and more for fun.
I miss dancing a lot. Sometimes I think I should take a class, but I know it would never be the same. I actually tried a ballet class a few years ago and I held my own pretty well. I was really proud of myself for doing such a good job, keeping up with the steps and jumps and spins. I couldn’t walk for a few days after, and going up stairs was pretty much torture, but I did it. Ok, ok I might be exaggerating a little. But anyways, like I said, it just wasn’t the same.
I think for me, one of the best parts of dancing and being a dancer, besides the thrill of moving through space, were the friends I made. It’s like any sport or hobby, really, you find a connection with other people who have a love for the same things you do. It’s happening to me now with blogging in the same way.
So anyways, I have the specific memory with some of my closest dance friends from college. We were an eclectic mix really, all so very different, but that’s one of the reasons I loved this group of people much. We all loved to dance and the rest didn’t matter.
It was spring vacation and while the rest of our school was away at home or off drinking on the beach on some island in the Caribbean, we were spending our time at a dance festival (taking classes, performing, watching all kind of glorious dance). We were getting to know each other better and better, which is what happens when you spend every waking moment with people, and at the end of one of our last days at the festival, as we were leaving the parking lot, I had this incredible experience I will never forget.
Whitney came on the radio.
I remember it like it was yesterday.
Without even discussing it we stopped the car in the middle of the parking lot, blasted the music as loud as it would go, opened the doors, got out, and started dancing.
We lifted our heads to the sky and threw our arms open wide.
We jammed and swayed and felt that music in the deepest part of our beings.
We just danced and danced like dancing fools do. Not a care in the world, not a bit of worry or embarrassment or self-consciousness.
We just danced our hearts out. All 5 of us right there in that parking lot.
We danced to Whitney and we loved it.
And forever I will love that song because it reminds me, truly, of when I was young and wild and free.
