I had my final line-dancing class at the seniors’ centre last week and, while I can’t say I’m ready for Nashville, it was an altogether positive experience in many ways.
It’s true that my newfound enthusiasm for line dancing may have been, in part, a response to an otherwise fraught summer, filled with challenges too numerous for me to enumerate.
High on that list is my partner’s and my upcoming move. Despite the significant work we did a year ago to get rid of as many excess possessions as possible, we are still facing a daunting task as we continue to eliminate even more unnecessary belongings before official moving day. Now, we’re down to the hard stuff; the items that require extensive negotiation between us; phone calls to kids to ask if they want this or that (they never do); items placed in the “get rid of” pile by one of us furtively moved by the other — in the dead of the night –to the back of the “keep” pile and vice versa; hours of despair as we survey all that we still have.
How does it happen?
I’ve been working on sorting through my office this week. It’s one of the tidiest rooms in the house, because my partner – who has a tendency to leave a telltale trail behind him wherever he goes – enters only by invitation and when I am present. How did I accumulate so much junk in my desk and filing cabinet drawers? Why do I have three rulers, not one of which I have used in years? Broken paper clips, stretched out elastic bands, lint-covered throat lozenges, dried out highlighters, tubes without even a drop of hand cream left in them . . . .
In our new home, my office will also be the spare bedroom and the den, so I’m downsizing significantly. With fewer hiding spots, perhaps I will accumulate less detritus. I can but hope. . . .
Dancing my worries away
I signed up for line dancing classes because I wanted an excuse to get away from my desk, and I thought taking a class might help me feel like I’m actually moving towards some version of retirement. I was looking for a little more physical activity than my daily walks provide and thought line dancing could be a fun way to get that. (Apparently, a line dancer takes about 5,500 steps in an hour of dancing. It’s good for the brain, too, outranking even crossword puzzles as a way to stave off dementia.)
Myriad complexities may interfere with my peace of mind right now, but for the 55 minutes of my class, I don’t think about a single one of them. Our teacher told us in the first class that if we didn’t stay focused on what we were doing, we’d lose track of our steps, and she was right. One day, I started composing a grocery list in my head and before I knew it, I felt as though I had two left feet, neither of which knew what it was supposed to be doing.
Getting over myself
I had worried that I would be too self-conscious and self-critical to enjoy the classes, especially when I realized that we would be facing a wall of floor to ceiling mirrors while we stumbled through our steps. Turns out, I was neither. I was not the worst in the class; nor was I the best. I may not have glided smoothly along the floor, but I didn’t trip and fall. I smiled almost as much as I sweated. I didn’t quit in despair or embarrassment.
I learned several dances, each consisting of multiple steps: the grapevine, the K-step, the hitch, brush, sway, kick and — my favourite — the twinkle. I danced to a lot of cheesy lyrics and tunes I more commonly hear blasting out of the sound system in a pick-up truck. By about class three of seven, I stopped staring at the teacher’s feet the whole time and by class five, I was no longer looking at my own. In the last couple of classes, I felt like I had gotten past just moving my feet in a series of individual steps. Sometimes, I heard myself humming along to the music. I could feel myself slipping into a bit of a twang, and started to think about buying a cowboy hat.
In my slip-in sketchers, capris and old T-shirt, I was no Thelma or Louise. I’m not planning on donning cowboy boots or line-dancing in public any time soon, and I’m glad there was no recital at the end of my classes.
Nonetheless, for an hour each week, I let go of my inhibitions and tried something that was really hard for me both physically and psychologically.
I danced, and it was glorious!