Gotta dance
The poet says that it is good to grow younger towards your death. I think I am regressing. Evidence? Tonight. Sitting with in a Cambridge restaurant after a movie…I’m a bit bored. My tablemates are texting and talking techie stuff. Dinner is over and I’m waiting for the bill. Listening to overhead speakers rolling 80’s rock music. Not the best decade. Our pierced (eyebrows, lips, tongue and nose) and goth-like waiter has disappeared and the bill is too long in coming. I’m tired and ready for sleep.
Then the beat overhead is familiar and Madonna starts playing “Material Girlâ€. I drum the percussion part on the Formica tabletop. Beat picks up, I pound louder and start to sway and sing along. I know I’m sliding down that slippery slope towards inappropriate behavior….then, what the hell. Jump up and say “let’s danceâ€. Friends at the table laugh but look a bit dismayed. But our waiter suddenly appears! With our bill and a big smile. That surly creature, who was slow and bored with all of us….He suddenly appears at my side, shimmeys and sways. Graps my hand, twists and twirls. We dance and boggle in the aisle, ‘til the song ends with a sharp beat and our hands high-fivin’. Middle aged, 55 year old me and 23 (tops) tattooed dude find common ground.
Hooray for this sweet PDA (Public Display of AbsolutelyGottaDance) … ! Sing like no one can hear you, dance like no one’s watching — or something such is how the old aphorism goes … Connection trumps decorous isolation (not that I can walk that talk, though … ).
Comment by immovable object — June 16, 2011 @ 7:56 am
I agree with the man above, but unlike him I have a job which allows me free time to fritter and I’d of loved a nice middle ground between your verbal version and what’s written.
Bullshit.
I’d like a cascade of creatively created paths for my vicariously lived needy self to wander about on. I want more detail. I want to know how you broke the inertia we all feel and rose from your chair, I want to hear the applause from nearby tables, I want to know more about that formica table top, I want for a few moments to be you because there will never be a time when I’ll jump up and say, “Let’s Dance.”
Comment by michael — June 16, 2011 @ 8:04 pm