My mother once told me that she thought a good way to counter the effects of my disability would be to sign up for dance classes. I mean, when I was a little boy, tap dance was discussed, then abandoned. Ballet was suggested, but, for some reason, it never happened. When I was in college, though, I took a quarter of ballroom dance. (At the time I suggested to friends that I was taking German and dance so that I could become a suave, gay superspy.) After that one quarter of ballroom, I knew the steps. I was still terrible at it, but I knew how to have fun with it. I like pretending I can dance, and occasionally I'll show people my moves. (Usually, after the store closes, I'm a wannabe Fred Astaire with a mop in the cafe. Yesterday, I grabbed my co-worker Luann's hand, and we did a couple steps.)
I once wrote this play in college that said I wasn't fit for modern romance, that I didn't know how to make it work. In the play, I said I wished I could use my grandparents' methods for courtship. I figured that my grandparents managed a 65-year marriage because they lived in an era of slow dancing, of conversation, of getting to know someone beyond what they looked like. When you danced with someone, you touched them, and you moved together, connected, across the floor. I'm romanticizing the time, certainly.
(I've seen SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, so I know I'm lucky that my grandpa didn't take up with one of the easier girls in town and drive my grandma straight into a nuthouse, as Warren and Natalie did to each other.)
Still, is there not something to be said for, dare I use the term, old-fashioned romance?
Today, there are no slow dances. There's pumping techno music that you have to scream over, and people are afraid to say hello first. Or people meet their soulmates through the Internet because that's how you have conversations now. Or you have sex first, then meet someone later. I don't know anyone I've dated who's fallen more in love with me over time. Didn't people used to do that? Maybe it's just me.
I've only gotten to slow dance with one boy ever. His name was Erin, and he worked with me at the newspaper. I had a crush on him that everyone, even he, knew about and tried their best to ignore. He had this boyfriend whom he loved, and I was the designated "crazy" one - yet I don't know if I really deserved that role. The dance took place in the office after a funeral for a friend of ours. Erin was in a funk but trying to keep his mind off of things. I'd stayed in the office that day so that others could go to the service. When he got back, dressed up moderately, I walked into the newsroom to see how he was doing. This kid named Mark was typing a story. And Erin was talking with this girl named Mary Sue about his ballroom dance class. He'd taken the same class as me. He was trying to show her how to do the fox trot. When the girl became thoroughly confused about it, though, I stepped in and told him that I knew how to do it.
Usually, he was polite to me because he was too nice to tell me to go away, but it had been a hard day for him. And he seemed to really want to get the step right. So he led, and I followed. And we did one full box step. And when he went forward, I went back, for his arm was at my side, guiding me. He had good form, so I felt his arm when he moved and moved with it.
And I was looking in his eyes when we stopped, which you're not supposed to do. And I glanced over at the kid Mark, who'd stopped typing. And I think I said thank you and left the room. I hope Erin, if he remembers this, never mentions it to me. I'd hate to think I was a bad dancer. Or that it mattered at all.
Swing music is back in vogue. Today, I bought the new Cyndi Lauper album, which covers old standards, and the "Mona Lisa Smile" soundtrack, which features old '50s tunes redone by people like Seal, Tori Amos and Macy Gray. Both of the albums are excellent, and they make me feel like the sort of romantic innocent that I always wanted to be when I was a kid - the one who was going to be able to dance, the one who was going to be able to sing and flirt and woo and do all those things successfully. Those ambitions, though I recognize them as silly, are still inside me when I hear this sort of music.
I think about the play I wrote, the one where I talk of sweeping a random, loving boy off his feet with old-style romantic gestures. The one time I performed it (because it's just a monologue featuring a slow dance), I actually had a responsive audience who liked it. And my dance partner, a girl then, was even impressed that I did the steps while continuing the monologue.
And I wonder sometimes if those old gestures would actually work for me now. Or if they would've worked for me, even in the '50s. I wonder what I'd sound like if I sang for an audience, now years out of practice (though I received accolades the last time I did karaoke). I wonder what I'd look like in a tuxedo nowadays, if I'd be able to win the hearts of the crowd and, in particular, a person in it.
I sing in my car. My voice, from what I can tell, isn't bad if I actually pay attention and try to keep my notes from falling flat. Kacoon once heard me sing "Luck Be A Lady" and told me that my voice was capable. (Then, she told me to please stop singing because she hated showtunes.)
I want to be Sinatra sometimes, and I'm playing to an empty house. It's a little upsetting.
If I sang a boy a love song, how freaked out would he be? If I tried to slow-dance with a boy, how awkward would that be? To serenade someone is now seen as silly, ridiculous, embarassing. I bought a boy flowers once, and he looked at me like I was quirky and dumb.
I didn't go to a bar tonight. I didn't get jilted. I'm not getting over a bad date. I'm not heartbroken. I'm not in "now denial" because a crush doesn't like me back. This post isn't coming from the usual, bitter places in my mind. These thoughts of romance come from the music I heard today and am listening to now. It's soft, innocent, amusing. It makes me want to hold someone's hand and have that mean something.
I'm being really silly. But, tonight in my living room, I'm going to work on my box step, and I hope that someone special gets to appreciate it someday.
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