Friday, April 16, 2010

I Want to Dance


Driving home from Jim Porter's Emporium after two hours of dance lessons, I was almost mesmerized by the well lit Slugger Stadium from the elevation over the field that I-65 provides. Baseball season has started, and the view of all the players and the stadium in the floodlights was quite an amazing sight.

Not quite a year ago, but last year nonetheless, I was lamenting over the fact that I didn't know what I wanted, pointing out that the lack of all desire is hell, unless you can also not desire wanting something. I knew there was something deep down that I wanted, but was not allowed to want, and I was at odds trying to figure out what it was. My subconscious hinted at it, knowing it was something creative but with rules. But by a stroke of opportunity, by being once again introduced to it, and given the opportunity to finally do it, I know what it is.

I want to dance. I remember the girl in preschool twirling in her new skirt as it rose in an ever shallower cone around her thighs. I want to move gracefully on the floor. I want someone to suggest the moves to follow. I want to make my skirt dance as if playing with the wind. And I want to spin, pirhouette, tap and sway. And I want to mix it up.

I want to gently touch and hold onto someone who I trust to direct us through an ecstatic ritual that can only be found on the dance floor.

I want to dance.

I realized that dance is also reflected in poetry. As I began writing poetry, I started with the basic steps, fixed meter, rythm and rhyme. As I advanced, I began to change the footwork up, going from a glide to a syncopated step to the basic step as the emotions took me. In my poetry, I found that I lead while you follow. And by taking you through my steps, I can take you on a journey within my world, experiencing the ebbs and flows within it.

Mathematic is also strongly related to dance. All the moves fall on perfect divisions, and like music, prepares the mind for the study of numbers and the relationships between them. From there it is not much of a step to science and engineering and then to computer science, which I tended to be good at. But computer science is a long way from dance. While it still maintains the lead/follow relationship through computer programming, it seems that I am forced to always lead, never adding the flair to make my pirhouette unique.

But every Thursday, I get to return to dance. I get to gently hold onto someone who guides my steps and sends me spinning, lifting my skirt against the generated breeze. I get to add new steps to a growing repertoire, and as my muscles remember the steps and the associated signals, I relax and have fun being more responsive to my partner of the moment.

Hugs and God Bless,
Sophie


Note: Gender Genie is way off in classifying this one :P



Words: 512




Female Score: 482

Male Score: 811



The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!



1 comment:

  1. I am in good company. Gender Genie thinks Ms. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was male when she wrote her letter to John Kenyon on July 7, 1851.

    http://ia341320.us.archive.org/3/items/thelettersofeliz16646gut/16646-h/16646-h.htm

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