WE LOVE TWO PEOPLE
We made a ‘comeback’ after not
dancing for over two years due to an auto accident
we were unlucky enough to have encountered. Now we
came back on the 27th only to be deterred
again because I fell going down a curb in front of
the hair salon where I went to get beautiful again
so I could go to the dance.
I stepped down and missed my
step and fell to the ground and this over the 4th of
July weekend. It is not good to be injured or sick
over holiday weekends. Luckily that afternoon my
doctor was still there in the office and saw me and
determined I had lots of bruises and they would
heal. The following Tuesday after the holiday I was
given sixteen x-rays over various parts of the body.
The only thing that turned up was a large one on my
tussy and an injured right knee with internal or
anterior as was called on the report bruise.
Now I am almost ninety-nine
percent healed and off we are to the dance studio to
do what we seniors do the best. We dance, we
socialize, we have fun and the bonus part is it is
good for our health, mentally and physically.
Rosamarie Simpson from out
West wrote me that she and her husband dance every
week on a Saturday night even on the nights they do
not feel like going. They push themselves, dress up
and get in the car. Once, she said they are at the
studio, everything melts away that has gone wrong
that week either at home, with the relatives, with
the children and at work. They are in their oasis of
good music, great times, light snacks and movement
of their bodies.
When they come home, they are
delirious with the knowledge that they have
accomplished something that is beneficial for their
minds and souls along with their sore feet. Many
write me the same things as Rosamarie says in her
email note. It is as if we are in a different world
when we dance. We rarely know the people well that
we associate with at the dance, yet they are our
special dancing friends.
When my son was Bar Mitzvah
over thirty-two years ago, we had a lovely dinner
and dance in his honor. We specifically learned to
dance right before the event because I wanted to be
able to get up and have fun at this occasion. Dance
we did and have been doing that at many events
including my daughter-in-law’s two brother’s
weddings along with my son and her wedding almost
ten years ago. Now her youngest brother is marrying
in December and he said to me "remember you always
said you would dance at my wedding and now it is
almost here."
That is nice to be remembered
by a young person that he thinks about seeing us
dance at the other siblings’ weddings and now it is
his and his fiancée’s turn.
Rafe and Cyndi are a young
couple from the mid west and they tell me that after
the kids are put to sleep and they may be tired from
work and home duties, they take every night thirty
minutes to practice what they learned the previous
week in their dance class of ten people. That is why
they are doing excellent dancing because they
practice the steps immediately. My husband and I
used to do that almost thirty-three years ago when
we came home from a dance lesson on a Tuesday night
at the studio. In those days a private lesson cost
less then twenty dollars and if you bought ten at a
time, they were 18.75 each which in those days was
still a lot of money for a young couple. We would
not go out to eat as often to a restaurant because
we wanted to encourage our minds, feet and heart to
dance. We would take the children out to a family
style restaurant because they loved the hot dogs,
hamburgers and fries but instead of going out
ourselves we put the money towards a weekly dance
lesson.
This was our happiness, our
purpose for a social life, our guide to learning in
our forties and when Mom came to babysit on Saturday
nights, we went dancing. In those days everyone
smoked and the place was quite smoky and the owner
herself reeked from cigarette smoke. Eventually, she
was forced to put the smokers in a separate room
because the dancers rebelled of sitting next to
people that blew smoke in their face and they were
trying to dance etc.
There was one lady named Mamie
who finally was told off by me. I said Mamie, we did
not come here to smell your smoke, and we came to
dance. She looked at me like I was crazy and this
long before smoking is banned in restaurants,
offices and halls. She would huff and puff
(literally) from the smoking and eventually passed
on due to lung problems.
So the dance studio is your
haven away from home and should be a happy, clean
and fresh air type place with no smokers destroying
the air and making it hard for the dancers to
breathe and dance peacefully.
Shakespeare said in Sonnet 144
(this the interpreted version, not the exact words)
I love two people. One
comforts me and the other makes me despair like two
spirits
both constantly point me in
two different directions. We can say that about our
dancing activities. One aspect of dancing comforts
me and hugs my heart into feeling peaceful. The
other makes me not despairing but uncomfortable
meaning they sometimes say or do difficult things
and that makes me despair and even though I care for
them, I love the other more. So we gravitate to the
love of what we call dancing and what it does for
our spirit and move away from someone who tries to
put us down and makes us sad.
There are many people out
there, even some in our family who thrive on trying
to put us down and say disparaging things to us even
though they act like they are saying it for our own
good. What they are really doing is trying to lift
themselves up at our expense and make us feel not
too happy at the moment whereas we who are avid
dancers can always find it in our heart to encourage
and inspire new people into dancing and we
compliment them and assure them that they are doing
well and make them smile. When we give a simple
pleasurable remark, we show that we are kind,
caring, and compassionate and to encourage someone
who is unsure of themselves is to compliment our
self that we are dear souls who know how to
enlighten others with our knowledge and decency.
Dancing is like two people.
One the inspiring soul and one who is inspired. May
we always be inspired and also inspire others too.
Elita Sohmer Clayman
September 2010
THIS ARTICLE IS DEDICATED TO
RENE WHO EDITS THIS WEBSITE AND IS AN EDITOR SUPREME
SHOWING HOW MUCH HE LOVES BALLROOM DANCING WITH HIS
HARD WORK AND HIS LOVE OF BALLROOM DANCE.
You can email me at
elitajerrydancing@verizon.net
