I like to dance. I’ll probably never be invited to appear on Dancing with the Stars or even participate in community musical theater. But I like to dance. I’ve never had formal training or been particularly coordinated in my informal attempts. But as a high school student I made a point to appear at all gyrational gatherings. In college, I dated under the disco lights of Packets and the Limelight in Atlanta. I like to dance.
I had the opportunity to dance this past Saturday. I was ending a long run up Northside Drive in Macon, Georgia. A shadow seemed to move across the sidewalk in front of me. An overhanging limb or a darting bird seemed to be casting its sun-darkened image on the pale concrete of the sidewalk. At least that’s what I thought. Stepping inches from the spastic splotch, I recognized the elephae obsoleta obsoleta – a black rat snake! He moved around my feet and I spastically moved around him. We danced…
Several years ago, I was sitting on the examining table of the emergency room at the George E. Weems Memorial Hospital in Apalachicola, Florida. “You have a kidney stone,” the doctor finally reported.
“A kidney stone!” I exclaimed, while continuing to writhe in pain. “How will I know when it’s gone?”
“Well,” the doctor said, “It will move out of your kidney, hurt like hades moving down your ureter, and when it hits your bladder you’ll perform the ‘great kidney stone dance’ until you expel it. It will be gone moments after the dance”
The doctor was right…I danced…
The best dances have nothing to with snakes or stones (Unless maybe it’s Whitesnake or the Rolling Stones), but rather, are the result of love. Having someone wrap their arms around you with a little Norah Jones or Gladys Knight or El DeBarge or Al Green or Marvin Gaye playing in the background. Swaying in a rhythm that lets you know you are held and loved and known.
Sometimes I dance in pain. Sometimes I dance in fear. I think love is the greatest dance. In a life filled with fears and pains, I love it when God cuts in….
good stuff! 🙂 bbc