Sandy’s Lady of the Dance

You all know I go dancing on many Sundays to 70s and 80s music if I’m lucky, and to 90s and 2000s if I’m not. (BTW, can we call them the aughts? I really loved the word aughts, but sadly it never caught on.) As fun as that is though I have long wanted to learn to dance more formally. I regularly perused the websites of the few places that offered ballroom dance lessons — pricey lessons that came with occasional dance parties and a self-proclaimed non-judgmental atmosphere. I’m sure all those good looking 30-somethings smiling in the photos and videos were lovely, but this introvert didn’t think I could manage the newness of learning to dance and being social at the same time, all while paying for the privilege. So I kept looking and thinking I would wait until I found someone to dance with. When that didn’t happen, in January I bit the bullet and signed up for a ballroom dance class that didn’t require a partner at Brookline Adult and Community Education. It was 8 dances in 8 weeks, which wasn’t ideal, but I figured I’d be able to narrow it down to one or 2 dances I wasn’t horrible at and focus on them in another class. Oh, did I mention it was January of 2020?

While I managed to finish the class before everything shut down, that was the end of the ballroom dance experiment. But the universe was still listening, and earlier this year I randomly discovered my friend Lenny also wanted to learn how to dance formally. We found a place in Cambridge that hosts social dances for bachata and salsa, two Latin dances. There is an hour lesson first and then dancing until the wee hours. We leave the wee hours to the young ones.

We took the plunge and on most Thursdays you can find us at the door at 8:30 when it opens, just like the blue hairs of old lining up for 4:30 pm supper. Yes, that is 8:30 pm. I drink a lot of coffee on Thursdays.

While we’re certainly not the oldest people there, nor are we the only *ahem* mature people there, the attendees skew to 20s and 30s. We are late 50s, early 60s, but we are also fearless and too tired to care, so we show up as soon as the doors open, get a drink, and park our asses on chairs and gossip until the lessons start. I’m not sure what I expected during that very first lesson. As a rule I try to keep my expectations in an airtight box shoved in the back of the closet. I knew I was going to be awkward, because who wouldn’t be? In my favor, I have a lifetime of being able to move my body the way the music makes me feel. I consider myself pretty flexible. As it turns out, bachata ain’t care about none of that.

At the start of the lesson, we all lined up in rows to practice the basic side-to-side steps and easy turns. OK, seemed reasonable enough. However, within minutes of starting, we became those grumpy old men in the balcony on The Muppet Show. “What did he say?” We both have hearing issues, but also, the instructor’s mike was really low. Lenny also couldn’t see anything because the bright club lights were in his eyes. I was able to squint enough to track the instructor’s feet like a cat focused on a mouse in the grass. “Watch his feet! Watch other people,” I hissed. “I can’t see anything!” Lenny protested. I wondered if our casual friendship was going to withstand the pressure of this weekly “fun” night out.

Then from behind us, we realized we could hear something. It was the much louder microphone of the instructor behind us who was leading the intermediate class. At the same time. In the same space. That would have been confusing for me in my 20s, with good hearing. We were hanging on for dear life, stepping side-to-side, turning half a beat behind everyone else, and from behind us, even our old ears could hear clearly: “5-6-7-8! Body wave and rotate! Now dip!” A quick glance behind me revealed about 40 people seemingly trying out for Cirque du Soleil. It takes a fair amount of self confidence to witness that and carry on in the slow lane.

We grimly turned back to our basic steps. The line practice was finished and then the instructor had us pair up. OK, this seemed like progress, even though my feet still were hopelessly out of sync, the signature hip swaying was beyond me, and the suggested hand flourishes for followers I flat out ignored. So far so good.

The instructor with his low microphone walked us through a little mini routine, maybe 4 moves, and we got to practice that. I felt a little better because Lenny has more formal dance experience, so I looked less dorky with him. Just when I was starting to relax a little bit, the instructor said something about a high five and rotate to the right. Lenny and I thought this was the start of another routine, but before we could wonder about what a high five was doing in a formal dance, everyone around us high fived and moved around the room to find another partner. What fresh hell was this?

Confused but compliant we rotated around and soon found ourselves in front of other newbies to walk through another couple of steps, and then switch again. And again. Essentially a bunch of sweaty newbies bumping around each other like heated molecules. While I got that it helps everyone get to know each other better, it’s an introvert’s (my) nightmare. I managed to get through about 3 people before I had to sit down. I spotted Lenny who is more social and he was making his partners smile with his natural charm. Lucky dog.

I girded my loins to try to get back in to the lesson, but it was like trying to merge onto a highway from a stop sign. Instead I got another drink and waited for the lesson to end.

“What happened to you!?” Lenny said when he came over. We exchanged partner stories and then laughed our asses off at ourselves and tried out fledgling skills on the dance floor. We survived for about 45 minutes and headed home. And then we did it again the next week.

Give me Michael Jackson, and I will dance and shout and shake my body down to the ground. Put on a Latin bachata song and I am the whitest, white girl on the floor. We’ve been going for months now, and I still can’t sway my hips to the basic steps and it takes all my brain power to remember what to do with my feet and to try to relax into following, rather than trying to control the dance moves. Yet we both keep showing up.

I was telling this story to a funny, sarcastic friend and she said: “So you are willingly destroying your own soul.” It still makes me laugh. It’s kinda true, but here is the other truth.

I wouldn’t exactly say I am enjoying myself while I am there because I continue to be way out of my comfort zone. Yet, I have a lot of belly laughs with Lenny, I remember to not take myself too seriously, and I always feel like a million bucks on my way home. We both enjoy the low, low stakes of this endeavor. I also get some satisfaction out of being completely out of my world, with its worries, stress, and long to-do lists. And there is no harm in me harboring a glimmer of hope that I may someday be able to string together a series of moves for more than 10 seconds. And hell, I may even learn to sway my hips.