Slave to the Rythm

Humans have used dance since forever to convey perception of the physical, expression of the emotional, and metaphor for the intimate. Angie and I love to see couples dance to the traditional forms of the ball room, and more so to the overtly sexual nuances of Latin dancing. Watching a couple dance together, who know what they are doing, and do it effortlessly while conveying romance and sex, can entrance me and transport my imaginary self into the man’s shoes, as I envision Angie transported into the shoes of his partner. Angie and I have been taking dance classes so we too can someday express what we feel for each other through dance form. The Rumba is rapidly turning out to be a favorite of ours, not only because of the slow rhythmic connection, but also because the steps and turns are easy enough to actually learn after a couple of passes. And there is that sex thing again. I have to concentrate on listening to the instructor, and coordinating with Angie, if I am not going to drift off and begin thinking of other connections she and I can make that are more in the reclining mode.

However, it is to my profound regret that I can not get to the same happy state with the Jitterbug. I am absolutely without ability to do this relatively simple dance, and can not find any symbiosis with the beat or rhythm of any music that typically accompany the dance. Coupling the problem with the fact I came into last Friday evening's class with a lower leg injury from the gym, I had all the ingredients for a flop. Angie had already made it clear, that short of showing a part of my femur sticking through my pant leg, we were going to class.

Her eventual ennui with the hobbled shuffle-step-clump of my restricted gait and out-of-time gyrations, was bad enough. But I really put her over with labored exhalations into her face after wolfing down a handful of potato chips and a quick slug of bad Zinfandel from the condiment table between song changes. She gave me the Eyes of Death, and came close to walking off the floor to leave me standing there like the dufus I am. But she hung in there like a trooper. We both did, but if the results could be expressed as an analogue to sexual intercourse, it was a complete limp job.