Once upon a time my wife-to-be and I decided to dance.
We were hanging out with my Mom and Sister. The big French windows were open as the radio softly played Hit Parade music. We breathed in the sweet perfume of garden and new mown grass. The summer evening stillness surrounded us with its lush dreaminess.
Les Paul and Mary Ford came on with their arrangement of “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”. Caught up in the words and the brand new sound of smooth syncopated electric guitar, we were seized with an irrational desire to go Dancing in the Dark.
We moved out onto the front sidewalk. The magic of the evening enveloped us. We heard the music loud and clear. Let’s Dance!
We embraced and began to sway to the music. As we tried to move our feet to the beat, a problem rose. Concrete is not a good surface for gliding in togetherness.
We moved to the grass. Better but we still found our feet tangling not two-stepping. We continued to stumble more than slide to the rhythm.
My Mom and Sister were much too well bred to laugh out loud. But they were smiling broadly and stifling their giggles.
My wife-to-be and I never fell over. We did wobble as our feet never seemed to move in synch to the delightful rhythms our hearts heard.
Neither one of us knew how to dance! No one had taught us any dance steps. We had never bothered to learn how to move our feet together in a waltz or a polka or a tango.
It’s probably a good idea to learn where and how to coordinate your feet on the ground if you’re going to dance with delight the syncopated rhythms of democracy.
I wonder! Could we have graceful governance if every elected official took lessons in ballroom dancing before taking office?
