I had my fortune told recently. The woman spread out the cards to do a “find true love” reading. I was to pick two cards, one for me and one for my unknown soulmate. Muttering my full name under my breath I set my finger on one card then I selected a second. She flipped over the cards chewing her lip while she pondered the implications of the pairing in front of her.
“Your reading is one of the hope and possibility the strength love’s youthful vitality brings. It’s the inner strength that gives each of us a reason to carry on. Dancing is a safe way to touch the romance without any commitment of love. When you find the right dance partner you will have found your soulmate. Just like in the dance, you will naturally be in perfect time with every step.”
I do not really buy into fortune telling. It is far too easy to pour your own interpretations into the vague card meanings. It really is little more than a fun way to pass the time and maybe take note of the things that you are thinking about, if you are that self aware. What she said about dancing struck me though; it reminded me of my own strange experiences with dancing. I had to write it down. I wanted to remember the idea.
Dancing is by nature a matchmaking custom. When you ballroom dance with someone you are in a closed position, face to face, eye to eye, close enough to feel the warmth of their skin with your arms tangled around each other. It is a perfect setting to fall in love. Why wouldn’t that image pop into your head when you picture romance? Spending three to five minutes pressed up against someone certainly seems like an obvious matchmaking exercise.
Honestly, I spent most of my life thinking that I hated dancing. A belief I confirmed during my freshman year of college.
I was spending spring break with my friend Emily and her family rather than flying all the way home. Emily is a dancer. You can see it in the way she moves, a slight twirl when answering a door or coming to rest at a table. Watching Emily express joy and excitement you can almost see the mundane world around her fade into a glittering ballroom. That has never been the way I move. Over the course of the year there had been several times that I had reluctantly agreed to go with her to our college’s swing dance club but I always found myself leaning against a wall for dance after dance waiting before finally giving up and leaving early. Somehow Emily managed to drag me to her regular swing dance club from high school while I was staying with her. She wanted to see some people who were there and assured me that everyone there was much nicer than at school so I tagged along.
Before that night, I think I danced properly three times. I had gone to dances and slow-danced but swing dancing, it turns out, is a little more complicated than holding each other up and swaying. You have to first know the basic step and then you have to know how to follow your lead through complicated twists and turns. I have always had a small disconnect between my brain and my body, like a loose wire that misfires and sends me the wrong direction. Every step requires a great deal of thought. I never found myself able to quiet my mind and enjoy the dance. When I did catch a grasp of the basic steps my lead would always throw it off by pushing my through an unexpected spin or dip.
I only waited three dances before a sweat soaked boy, about my age, approached me and offered me his hand. It took me a moment to realize he was asking me for a dance.
I arched an eyebrow at the boy, “What?”
He pushed his hand forward again then let out an exasperated sigh. “Do you want to dance or not?”
“I suppose…”
He snatched up my hand and dragged me to the center of the gymnasium floor, locking me into a tight dance position.
Dancing with him, I felt like a ragdoll. He pushed me through the steps with enough force that my neck snapped to and from, then into a complicated spin that I did not know without any warning. I stumbled and found myself flung out at the end of his arm, not knowing how to get back. It made sense to turn toward him and take a step in.
The boy scoffed. “You don’t dance much, do you?”
No, one thing was certain. I did not enjoy dancing. I did not like to be pushed through moves and I did not enjoy feeling belittled when my brain got in the way or I did something wrong. I convinced myself of that much.
Of course, there are significantly more subtle ways that dancing is a matchmaking custom. Some psychological studies claim that listening to music with your family or partner makes you feel a deeper connection to them. Your hearts actually sync up and start beating together. Well, dancing does require music. It is not unheard for have two people dance without music but they always look out of place. It seems so natural that you would feel more deeply connected to someone when your hearts start “beating together” and you are moving as one.
I can imagine that in a world in which men and women were never allowed to be alone together and did not spend hours talking about time travel or whatever it is that people talk about on dates. They had to rely on that feeling of connection to fall in love and choose their future partner.
I actually really did like dancing, so long as I did not have to think about it. Dancing as just me with a group of friends was easy and fun. I liked to move and sway with the music over my headphones or bop around in my car. I was not sexy or graceful when I would twirl alone in my home or with my friends, I did not have to be. It was just fun. The music would crash over me and sweep me away. That is what dancing was supposed to be.
So long as there was no pressure, I loved it. The moment there were steps to follow my body would seize up and that broken wire between my brain and body would misfire and I loved it less. Much to my dancing friends’ disappointment.
The last way dancing acts as a matchmaking tool seems to me like it would be the most obvious except that it is nearly impossible to achieve. It requires a perfect pairing.
I had long since given up on the idea that I might ever be a dancer when I found myself standing at the back of a garden wedding reception, swing dance music filling the air. Cool grass tickled my feet through my sandals. I was slid my foot back and forth, an awkward habit, while I talked with a guy I thought was far too handsome to ever show any real interest me. We had met earlier in the wedding festivities and kept finding ourselves near each other with things to say.
The music got louder and he glanced away, toward the patio where other guests pushed aside furniture to create a small dance floor. The bride and groom had met swing dancing, it only made sense that they would want to dance at their wedding. He turned back to me, sporting a crooked grin.
“Do you dance?”
“Oh… um… no.” If I blushed with embarrassment he could not tell. The heat and sun left my skin a rosy hue. “I tried really hard to learn in college but I was never any good, despite Amy and Emily’s best efforts.”
“I’m not much of a dancer either. I don’t even know the basic step but I do know one move, the pretzel.”
“What’s that?”
He held out his hands to me, a silent offer to show me the move. Waiting for me to agree. Hesitating, I awkwardly placed my hands in his and was immediately pulled through a quick twirl. Not forcefully, he moved with just enough power that if I did not want to follow his hand would slide away from mine. The turn slowed and I faced him.
“Here, you step this way first.” I did my best to follow. “Then I spin you out and… you made a decision there, you can’t do that.”
I had made the wrong step to get back, like I always do.
The blush he could not see darkened. “Oh… I like making decisions. I’m a woman of the nineties.”
When I looked up, he was still smiling. “I’m sure you’re good at making your own decisions too. Do you want to try again?”
Before I could move, the wind kicked up. A sudden sneeze rocked his whole body.
“Bless you.”
“I’m so sorry,” he covered his face with his hands sneezing two… three more times. “I must be allergic to something. Excuse me.” He disappeared, unexpected sneezes still rocking his whole body.
“It was me. He must be allergic to my terrible dancing,” I laughed and wandered over to a friend I had not gotten to talk to yet that day.
The hours passed and the the hot afternoon faded to a warm summer night. Finally I dug my phone out of my purse to check the time. 10:15. It would take an hour to get to my friend’s apartment to drop her off, then another half hour to get to my own home. I counted up the hours in my head. It would be well past midnight before I made it to my bed with a full day of work ahead of me. It was time to make the responsible decision and head home. I slipped my phone back into my bag, gathered up the people I was driving home, and bid my farewells to the bride and groom.
I had to cross the makeshift dance floor to leave. On the far side the handsome guy from earlier set his water aside. Beyond him my passengers were waiting to leave. I crossed the patio toward them but something made me pause beside him. Without thinking I rested my hand on his shoulder, fingers tasting the soft linen of his shirt, gently guiding his attention to me. Just a quick goodbye. I doubted I would ever see him again.
“Hey, it was really great to…” Meet you. I had meant to say it was great meeting him. That I had enjoyed his company over the last few hours. My words vanished replaced by an expression of surprise when he had wrapped that arm around my waist, resting his fingers on my spine. Pulling me into a perfect dance position he snatched up my other hand and pressed me close to his chest.
“Do you have time for one dance? Or do you have to go?”
“I…” His arms were not so firm around me that I could not pull away if I wanted to. Cold water rushed through my core. I glanced over his shoulder to where my friends had been waiting. They all seemed to have disappeared in the space of a second. “I think I have time for one dance.”
“Good. These are the basic steps.”
He was not a perfect dancer and I struggle to follow even the most forceful lead. The dance we shared was simple, most of it spent swaying through the basic steps with a twirl or turn here and there. Guiding me through the steps, never pushing or pulling. There was something so different about dancing with him, something new and surprising.
I had never really danced with anyone before him, only struggled to follow as someone forced me through the steps. Dancing with him was so easy, like reading his mind. He did not scoff when I made a mistake only adjusted his step as though he had meant for me to go that direction. He was the perfect partner I had been missing.
In her retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses fairy tale. Entwined, Heather Dixon describes a perfect twinning; an interweave that is nearly impossible to achieve because it requires a perfect partnership to highlight each other’s strengths and overshadow the weaknesses. It stops being a pairing of a lead and a follow and becomes a dance. There is a reason so many fairy tale true loves meet while dancing. When you meet someone who is a perfect dancing partner for you, the things you feel are more than the electricity of being wrapped up in someone’s arms or the superficial syncing up of your hearts to the beat of the music. It becomes a gauge of your physical and mental compatibility as you learn to read one another’s minds and movements. It is a meter of how you fit together and a mirror of how you respect each other. I never cared for dancing because I did not fit with any of my partners. They were fine dancers but they were never my match. It was like wearing someone else’s shoes, they pinch your toes and make you stumble.
“When you find the right dance partner, you will have found your soulmate. Just like in the dance, you will naturally be in perfect time with every step.”
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