Thoughts on the Dance Floor

On Sunday nights, the university sponsors swing dancing in the student union. The music blares, the doors are flung open, and couples hit the floor.

I will give it to the guys there--they do their best. They go out of their way to make sure that no girl is without a partner, that each one is comfortable and enjoying herself. It's witnessing things like that--the best and most attractive dancer in the room inviting a shy, bespectacled freshman girl out onto the dance floor--that make me think, I like nice men. 

It's something I increasingly take for granted, chivalrous men. After all, I go to a small, conservative, Christian university where old-school values are still going strong. There are all sorts of people here, of course, but for the most part, the men are beautiful.

There's something really cool about men, well, being men. 

So I think--shouldn't I take it for granted?

Shouldn't this be our standard, this manly, courteous, gentle, thoughtful kind of man?

So, swing dancing.

I headed over to the student union late last night, never expecting to get roped into dancing. When I got there, I found a friend of mine--we'll call him John--standing on the sidelines and watching the action. On seeing me, his face brightened and he bounded over, holding out his hand.

I said, "Huh?"

Then his intention grew clear: I was to go out onto the floor with him, amid the couple twirling in graceful circles like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and dance.

Don't get me wrong. I like to dance. I would even say that I'm a decent dancer. Growing up, I took a lot of dance lessons, mostly ballroom stuff, but it's all been filed away in my memory now. I do not like looking silly, and as I didn't know what I was doing, I pretty soon found myself being forcibly bereft of my wallet and coat and carried onto the dance floor. I probably fought a little, but I'm five foot two, and no match for two guys.

John said, "Take some risks. It's an adventure."

So I shut up. And just a side note--to John, who will never read this blog post--you are a fantastic leader. You relaxed me, you helped me follow and made me laugh. It was lovely.

I was enjoying it in spite of myself, if I ignored the couples around us who were, quite literally, flying through the air. When the dance was over, John kissed my hand (!!) and left me. A moment later he was spinning fearlessly with another partner.

Someone else asked me to dance. It was different, dancing with a total stranger (OK, not a stranger. We actually met last semester during a Pittsburgh ministry, but he didn't remember, so I didn't remind him). There was a lot more talking than twirling. When the song was over, he said, "May I have another dance? I'm really enjoying talking to you."

Whoa.

And even though I fumbled, he kept me laughing. When I left at 11:30, I still couldn't banish my smile. The exercise had done me good, and I felt flushed walking out into the chilly evening.

I know people say chivalry is dead. A lot of them even say good riddance. I get it. I do. At the same time, I think we've lost so much by doing away with that courtesy, that measure of respect for one another. There I was, standing uncomfortably on the sidelines with my clumsy shoes and my shambled heart, and the attention of these two boys--one a friend, the other a (semi-)stranger--made me feel feminine and pretty. And I even had fun.

This is why we treasure the princes of fairy tales and fall in love with story heroes. To those boys who dare to be chivalrous, thank you. You don't know how much we girls ache for real men.

The Creature that Wanders the Halls

You know the look that people in the student union coffee shop give you?

That someone-left a paper-late look, that I-know-this-is-your-third-cup-of-coffee-today look?

I got that this week. I shrank beneath it, murmured a thanks so soft and ashamed it could have been mistaken for a cough, and escaped.

If I learned a difficult lesson from that night, it was to never venture back into the land of caffeine. Then my brain catches up, and I think, Maybe you should rethink that double major. 

Goodbye for now, coffee cup. I know we will meet again.

Up until now, I've never been able to track down anything that really gives me a jolt. It's possible I reached some level of homeostasis from too many years of black tea. Then, last weekend, my friend Joe asked me to run to the cafe and get him a coffee.

Perchance I should have learned my lesson there. I should have told him to get his own dang cup of coffee.

(Just kidding. If I remember correctly, I offered to treat.)

Then he uttered the fateful words, "Tell them to add a shot of espresso."

The words stayed in my mind, and Wednesday night, when I walked over to get something before starting my paper, I thought I'd try it.

At 2:30 AM, when I decided to take a break from writing my conclusion, I wandered the halls of the dorm, pondering the sleeping breaths of my 300 fellow residents. Across the piazza, the windows of Louis Hall were dark. That was eerie.

But in the wee hours, nothing. No sound. No rustle. No boys bursting into one another's rooms to yell and wrestle. No shouts from the lobby. No girls calling to one another for hairpins, homework help, clothes, advice. None of the myriad of other sounds that constantly echo down the halls at college.

I was a ghost, just the slip of a spirit, made corporeal by coffee.

Because I could, I did a couple of pirouettes down the eerie halls. Maybe, I thought, I should do some jumping jacks. I had a teacher in high school who hauled us up for jumping jacks whenever he sensed the class was mentally less than present. Just the thought of moving that much after only dregs of sleep and too much coffee made my stomach roil.

I wandered on, caught, like Hamlet's father, in my caffeine purgatory.

At long last, I snatched four and a half desperate hours of sleep and thought, never again. 

But I can hear it, that sniggering voice, the jolt of caffeine in my veins.

"Don't wait up," it says. "I'll be back soon."

After January

This year, speeding up to This Month.

I remember the delicious free time of Last Year, when senioritis relaxed me, soothed me. I had gotten into college, after all. Work was pointless. I had much better write.

I did, and finished The Default Sweater in May. That was a gem of a day, what with triumphant story endings and new jobs and wonderful new beginnings and endings all rolled into one.

Then came summer, and I drifted away from my computer, moving across an ocean. That was all right, because after all, I had finished the story. It was time to let it sit and mellow before tackling it again come fall.

Fall did come, and it was exhilarating. It bowled me over with the power of a fist. Still, I didn't come back to write.

I would, I said, over Christmas break. But Christmas break was lonely and restless.

Now, January is gone.

It's a relief. I feel a little tired, a little pale and sick, exhausted from picking up pieces of paper and assignments and broken glass, and now I think, I'll write.

Soon.