Swing Time

For the past several days, we’ve been learning West Coast Swing dancing, compliments of the 18-year-old. She’s off to Berkeley shortly where she is hoping to really learn how to do it and to find someone to really dance with. But in the meantime, there’s Ed and me. And there’s YouTube. She calls up some videos showing people doing it. Then she calls up some instruction videos, same source. And we watch intently on our fairly big, flat screen monitor. It’s 1, 2, 3 4, 5&6. Or something like that.

We try singly, then partner up, then back to singles. And we sort of get it. And then we lose it. We give up on the YouTube videos and try to find some music in our own CD collection, since the YouTube videos are fairly short in length. Maybe Abba? No, too, too, too fast. Maybe Manhattan Transfer? Should work but doesn’t. Maybe I’ll just sing ‘42nd Street’? No one waxes enthusiastic about that attempt. It turns out that we have only singing music, and no dancing music in our CD collection.

Finally, we borrow a Fred Astaire CD from a quilting friend and we discover that ‘Swonderful’ works perfectly. Eventually, near exhaustion, I go to bed, only to find myself lying there, moving my feet in that 1,2,3 and 4,5&6 pattern. Do I have the triplet right? If I do, why am I ending up on my right foot, which I need for the next 1? Can’t sleep, can’t dance.

I’ve never been much of a dancer. My older brother taught me to jitterbug in the early 50’s, but I was never sure he knew how to do it, so didn’t trust that I was actually learning anything useful. When I was in high school, maybe 14 or 15, I went to an LDS Stake House dance and danced with an 18-year-old who obligingly told me I was a terrible dancer and didn’t follow. That probably sealed my doom.

The sixties worked pretty well for me because during that time we just gave up on the idea of partners who do the same thing but in reverse. I can move my feet to the music; I can keep the time and even feel it as I move. But I don’t get the idea that we all have to be doing the same thing at the same time. I like doing my own steps, my own way. Which may be true in more ways than dancing.

Nevertheless, there we are, dancing to YouTube, learning the steps that I will sooner or later refuse to follow. Ed and I and the granddaughter are all in giggles by the time the first evening of dance lessons is over. Ed and I couldn’t be more pleased to be doing this with her, couldn’t be more surprised to be doing this at all. We tend to think about what we can do for the grandchildren, and here is a grandchild doing something for us, instead. Even if I never do West Coast Swing dancing again, we’ll always have this week in August. Which is at least as good as always having Paris.