Today, Lisa-Jo’s Five Minute Friday prompt is “Dance.” Now you know I couldn’t pass that up.
I’m sitting on the couch, watching So You Think You Can Dance. This may just be my favorite show of all time. But H doesn’t get it.
Two couples glide across the stage on the television and H asks me, “Now, what is it you like about this again?”
I have to think about it. He’s been asking me this same question about dancing for years. So, this time, I want to get the answer right. I watch the leaping and the lines and the emotion of the dancers and I can’t take my eyes off them.
“I can feel myself doing that,” I say.
“Ohhhhh,” he says. And I think he understands it.
The guy in Chariots of Fire says he feels God’s pleasure when he runs. That’s what I feel when I dance. I’m holding on to hope – dreaming a big dream – that one day I will dance on a stage on Broadway. It might just be a quick shuffle across the back of the stage as an extra on whom some director takes pity one day. But I’m not letting that dream go. Not even in the midst of living other ridiculous dreams.
The dancers on the television stand still. The music is done. I watch them – their rib cages rising and falling as they catch their breath because gliding across the stage as if it’s easy isn’t easy at all. I watch them breathe and realize I’ve been holding my breath the whole time.
