by Cathy
How long has it been since you've been out dancing?
I'm not talking the kind of dancing where you're bobbing your head to the music while trying to converse loudly into someone's ear over cocktails in some frou-frou lounge or even the kind where you shake your booty while you're standing in place in an overcrowded bar. I'm talking about the kind of dancing where you abandon your inhibitions, feel the music pump through your veins, don't care who's watching, dance to every song played and flop down back into your seat in a sweaty, satisfied exhaustion. That kind of dancing.
For me? It's been a while. A looooooong while. It's not for lack of trying. In fact a couple of years ago around this time of year, Patti and I rounded up some girls and decided to go "clubbing" to get us into the holiday spirit. Sadly, the only eventful part of the night was when a girl, who had been desperately stalking and hovering over the DJ, was pointedly rejected by him and fell down in a slobbering mess of mascara and stiletto thigh-high boots. (Well, that and when we walked out to find our car had been booted.) Inside, the club was hardly hoppin'. We weren't really feeling the undanceable Top 40 dance mix hits being spun. We didn't have enough cash to spring for the $400 bottle service that seemingly, everyone else in da club had privilege to, which left us a tad too sober to really get into music we didn't feel in the first place.
Maybe it was the club. Maybe it was the uninterested DJ. Maybe it was because we weren't rolling in bank. But were we trying too hard to force it? Shouldn't we just feel it and let it happen organically? But in order for that to happen, don't we need to go out and put ourselves in those environments more often? Which, we haven't. Maybe we're too old. Maybe we don't need to do that anymore...or so we think.
Joe and I picked up the girls from school one day last week, and on our way up our back steps, Joe's cellphone rang. I call it his Cleopatra tune - a fluted symphony accompanied by the clicking of tinged castanets. The girls and I joked about his Egyptian ringtone as he attempted to take a business call. Outside our back door now and Joe officially off the phone and fidgeting with his keys, Bella announced, "Hey, you wanna hear my ringtone?"
A catchy, Halloweeny-type tune of beeps and drumbeats burst out of her phone through what Joe and I apparently thought were club speakers. Instantly and simultaneously, Joe and I started to "get down". Right there on our back deck, in full view for our neighbors to see and much to the horror of our children. And I mean, we were getting down. Our deck was transformed into a dim, strobe-lit dance floor. Bags were thrown to the ground, feet were being lifted off the ground, knees bending, arms flailing, hips flinging - while the girls sat frozen and the keys dangled off our back door. Bella was too stunned to stop the music - so we just kept dancing. A "woooooo!" even made its way out of my mouth. Oh yeah...we were feeling this.
Bella came to her senses and stopped the music with an, "Oh. My. God."
"Hey, put that back on!" I demanded, desoperately.
On it came again and Joe and I danced our way into the kitchen, laughing our beat-busting butts off.
As the tears of laughter subsided, I said, "How sad are we? We're getting down to a ringtone."
"What do you mean?" asked a laughing Joe, knowing damn well what I meant.
"We've been so dance deprived that the slightest hint of drumbeats sets us off to boogeytown," I stated the obvious. "Dude, we were dancing to a ringtone."
Yes it was funny, but really, it was sad. And yes, it did happen organically but it also showed us how we really do enjoy this and gasp! even need it once in a while. The end of the world may come tomorrow, but we're not dead yet. So let's dance like there really is no tomorrow.
