Just by coincidence, this was a three wedding season: June, July and October, after a relatively long drought  The first, an intimate wedding in a small colonial church on a hot June day, with reception in the Garden House amongst the roses of Elizabeth Park in Hartford, CT.  The next, a rather formal Armenian/Greek service in Watertown, MA with the crowning of the bride and groom, followed by reception in the function hall of an upscale, harborside hotel in  Boston. The last, over Columbus weekend, was the 10/10/10 wedding date of our niece Jen and her sweetheart, Brian, at a military installation in Carlisle, PA, with a Disneyworld theme. All very different, all a lot of fun – a good deal of it on the dance floor.

 It’s taken this celestial alignment of nuptials to really remind me how much I love to dance, how good it feels, how wonderful it is as a group activity and physical expression of celebration.  At the first wedding, it was lots of twenty-something’s with pop and hip-hop and dancing without shoes. The Greek/Armenian wedding had ethnic music and modern pop – no matter what, the dance floor was crowded, all ages, all sizes — a few women in danger of shaking out of their dresses. There was no sitting around; everyone was waved onto the dance floor in lines, chains or circles, arms in the air. Joyous, exuberant and loud.  Our niece’s wedding was fun for seeing all the young cousins out there together, some more comfortable than others – my own two hambones, Dylan and Bruce, leading the way.  All those crazy party dances – Electric Slide and Cotton-Eyed Joe, etc.  Plus, showing off their own moves in the middle of the circle.  Words cannot do justice to what good dancing can be.

It’s a legacy of which I’m proud – that my guys are good dancers, and like to dance. My husband, Donald, is a big guy, but he moves lightly on his feet and he’s got the rhythm.  He’s also the guy that will break into song out of the blue – he just loves music. The boys and I used to dance around the house, when they were way younger, just to use up energy or iif a song came on the radio that really moved us.  I took ballet and some dance in college – but would never have had the discipline to follow it far, and perhaps not the figure, either, with my short legs and big hips.  But, in Santa Cruz, especially, there were lots of occasions to dance, from ballroom waltzes, to reggae and rock, and the theater bunch tended to be pretty enthusiastic dancers – all attention is good attention. I have to give props to Angel Galindo, my sweetheart at the time, who is a dancer at heart – and studied dance quite seriously in college. Always a pleasure to watch, and who gave me the nudge and the example of feeling the music, rather than following the steps.  That was the beginning, I think, of my true enjoyment of dance. 

If only, I think to myself, we danced more, the world would be a better place.  It’s good for the body, and it’s good for the soul.  It says a lot about who we are and is something that we share socially.  Music can move us, and really, it should.