Never Stop Dancing

A day and a dance

Madrona MindBody. I'm thirteen. We're at a workshop with the creator of our dance twirling among us. The whole hall is alive to his teaching.

He’s been separating the class into ages all day. He starts giving instructions and Bella, the one girl my age, misinterprets something he says and ends up in the middle of the dance floor.

“That's fine" says our teacher, “keep dancing" and she does. There, alone, as he keeps running the rest of us through a breathing exercise. She probably doesn't mind, sweet show off that she is, but I step in anyway. I've been trying to dance with her all year, but I don't, as I step into the giant circle with fifty eyes watching me. I just dance my own dance and she dances hers - alone together.

Why? I hate to dance alone.

                                                        

---

I brought Mama nettles, but she has big plans. So we take the time to go out to The Nettle Patch.

The Nettle Patch. lt's the biggest area of nettles I've ever seen. Spanning all the way across a field and into the woods beyond. I could harvest here all day, every day of my life and not exhaust this patch until winter.

As we enter, both Mama and I get quiet. We both bend, she with scissors, I with bare hands, but both with care. We gently transfer tops into bags, leaving at least one set of leaves so they can grow again.

She segues into the shade. I keep to the sun. We talk a little - I tell her about my dream. Her nettle spice cake a prominent prop, we talk about the nettles at home.

Nettles are a dreaming plant. They dream beneath the soil all winter, and walk among the dreams of those who know them. In spring, they slip beneath your fingertips to change the dream at your desire.

“What will you do with your nettle magic?” I ask Mama on the way back.

“I'm going to manifest you correctly fitting jeans!” she says. We laugh - we've been fighting over them the past few weeks.

On the way home we take a wrong turn and end up by Goodwill, where a pair of jeans that fit me perfectly, in just my color, lasso my heart.

Nettle magic. It's real. Now what will I use mine for?

                              

---

Evergreen. I'm twenty. The dance co-op has been small lately, and less people means less people want to come. Leadership hasn't been great either. They have a tendency to change the places or cancel without notice, but I still come every week, old faithful.

Today I know where it is. There's a party in the Longhouse, a special DJ from out of town. There's even food - people will be there.

When I arrive there are people, but no one is dancing. I came here to dance. I'm comfortable being the first person on the dance floor, so I step right on. Another woman who's been waiting for dancing to start gets up and joins me, and soon we have an entire eight people dancing.

Then a group leaves, and it's just us four. Two people sit down and it's just us two. She leaves and it's just me. I keep dancing.

I dance for two hours just the DJ and me. People wander in and out. Once one starts dancing for five minutes and then sits down. I keep dancing. Finally near the end a gaggle of girls enter. They begin dancing in their circle, and the four of us finish the night. The DJ comes out to thank me, but I have a bus to catch and dash out into the rain. There I slip in a puddle, rip my pants from base to butt, barely making the bus in time.

I didn't go back to dance for the rest of that year.

                             

---

After we get back from picking nettles, and have made soup and eaten a little besides, Mama offers to drive me out to Fort Worden where a Fusion Dance is tonight. She wants to take a walk. I'm work trading with Madrona for dancing again, and I need to get in the building before they close it at six. The dance is at eight thirty, but I have a book.

She wanted to walk with me, but by the time we arrived there’s really not enough time. She says she'll hang out in the park for the hour, I offer her my book and she refuses. “I can't read that - it's Men's Mysteries.” I'm pleasantly surprised, and we agree to meet in an hour.

Mama drops me off and I make my way in. There are classes going on in both dance rooms I'm supposed to mop, not a good sign. I wait for the shorter class to finish, cleaning bathrooms and moving signs while I wait.

Class over, I come in and start mopping while the instructor is still gathering her things.

“I haven't seen you here in a long time,” she says.

“Just got back from college.” I tell her.

“Remind me of your name?”

“Pan.”

“Pan, I'm Jan"

“I'll remember that,” I tell her.

When I'm done I hurry down to the beach, Mama's just coming up.

“I took my walk, sorry.”

As I retrieve my backpack from her car, I get a call.

                              

---

Fusion Dance. A week ago. Eithne was going to pick me up, but she got sick and I ended up riding with the coordinator. We arrived early and set up. Music was playing. There's one woman here who I’m just getting to know. I pulled her out onto the dance floor.

We danced a few songs. A few other people start dancing too -there are six or seven of us- not nearly our normal numbers. Four of us step away to have a coordinator meeting - I've volunteered to be in charge of a dance a month. When we come back out, the other three people are sitting on the couch.

I go and start dancing while I wait for one of them to free up and come join me. The other coordinators sit down and join in the couch conversation.

I keep dancing. As long as one person is dancing this is still a dance, and people will realize that and come dance too. I dance with my reflection in the windowpane. I dance to the Walt Whitman being recited aloud. More and more I start dancing my anger and frustration at dancing all by myself with six other dancers sitting on the couch occasionally watching me.

Do they think I'm doing this because I want to?

After an hour of dancing alone, two other people show up and a few couples get up and I try and breathe the frustration away. Philadelphia comes and dances with me, and we talk and dance. About her day and tears and realizations about her daughter. About my missing my Eithne time, and dancing alone.

“I miss her presence here too,” Philadelphia says, “and you're dancing with me now.”

I resolve then that I won't take a break from Fusion Dancing. They're good people after all.

     

---

It's Eithne on the phone. I say goodbye to Mama - I try so hard to avoid answering phones in the middle of social interactions - and call her back as Mama drives away. She's still leaving me a voicemail.

I move into the last little angle of sun, and try again.

“Hi”

“Yo"

“You called?”

“Wanted to know where you were.”

“I am sitting in a little sliver of sunlight in Fort Worden reading Michael Meade and waiting for the dance to start.”

“Oh you're already there. You know that the dance doesn't start for another two hours?

“Yeah"

“Would you like me to rescue you?”

“I wouldn't mind being rescued.”

“I'm going to go get some pizza and then I'll meet you there.”

I end the call and feel my fingers. The Nettle magic that nestled there just moments before is gone now. As I suspected - I've gone and summoned myself a companion. This stuff is dangerous.

She shows up without pizza, wondering if the pub we're going to has food. We decide to go see.

As she opens her truck door her glass water bottle tumbles out to break on the concrete. We both bend and pick up glass together.

“Those old ladies think we're doing something cute"

Aren't we?

                             

---

Jailhouse pub. Present.  We go in and there is in fact food which Eithne proceeds to order. We sit in big armchairs as she eats and tells me all about her sex life. I listen, not knowing the right questions to lure her into thinking this is a conversation, but knowing she'll talk into my silences - I'm certainly interested.

At some point it becomes apparent that she thinks I'm some sort of Lothario. That maybe I couldn't understand her female perspective. Huh - maybe I should dial back on the lusty Satyr persona, I think.

At another point she compares me favorably to her boyfriend, sending me into a scary moment where the world spins and I pour any remaining nettle magic into shields. I'm not manifesting anything into her relationship. Nothing.

Later I'll wonder -why am I doing this? Why am I listening, asking questions- I don't do therapist anymore. I do fascinated writer looking for tidbits though. And friend? Maybe I do friend.

The two hours go by fast.

Dancers start showing up and sitting down -the coordinator is late- we don't even have music.

The bartender finally gets music going and I pull Eithne up to dance. Then we split up and each pull someone else up. One by one we start pulling people out of their seats and onto the dance floor.

Jan the dance instructor shows up and I pull her in. She's never done Fusion before, but she knows how to dance. She loves dips and I'm surprised by how much I can show her.

The people drift back to their seats, like dust bunnies away from a draft. There are songs where it's just me on the floor dancing by myself. Feeling all the anger and loneliness that comes with the territory, but never for long this time. One or two songs and Eithne is out with me, telling me to slow down and listen to her. A couple dancing is more incentive to dance than one alone. Others follow.

When we leave a little early there are still people on the floor.

                            

---

As we walk back to her truck, I start wondering why it is I keep dancing when everyone else is sitting. I hate being the only one on the dance floor so much, yet I keep doing it over and over again.

Recently, talking about Eithne with a friend, he recommended I cut her out of my life. Protect my heart. It's the kind of advice I'd give, but even when it gets scary I find myself dancing that dance too, even though it too is alone.

Mama said recently, in her characteristic way of making statements without context, “you're not very vulnerable are you?” I think maybe she's surprised I asked Eithne to not compare me with her boyfriend - but she says that's not it.

“You're sensitive, very sensitive - I know you feel about things deeply. I mean that you don't break apart -there's a difference.”

There is a difference. I feel very deeply - loneliness, anger, sadness, everything that dancing alone brings up - I feel it, but it doesn't break me. Other people break when they're the second person on the dance floor or the third. I can be the first.

I use my capacity to not break to try and create the environment I want - one where people are dancing, one where friends can talk about their sex lives, one where we're engaging on a level just a little deeper than words, and if I stop dancing, if I'm not doing the thing that I want everyone else to do, then there's not even the possibility.