I have the best husband in the world! Even if he won't dance with me, he lets me dance with everyone else. Actually, he pushed me out the door. Now that I got started, I can't stop. I'm hooked, just like I was before I met him.
It all started one Wednesday night when I went to the San Antonio Swing Dance Association's weekly social. It was so weird going all by myself to a dance where everyone else was single. (It still is weird, but not so much anymore now that I know most of the people -- or at least most of the leads.) Fortunately, this genre attracts upstanding people who are there for one purpose: to dance. People range in age from 18 to 60, and everyone asks everyone else to dance.
It took me a few months to summon the courage to do the asking, but I'm more confident in this foreign scene now and ask as much as I get asked. I had forgotten a lot over 10 years' time, but the more I danced, the more it came back to me. And I got my groove back...mostly. There are still dance steps I'd love to do, but the lead has to know them in order for me to have the opportunity to do them. But that's okay -- I'm having such a good time revisiting my old passion. And the funny thing is, I think my dancing hiatus has done me good: I no longer fight the urge to lead; I am at the mercy of the lead and I've become a rather good follower, if I do say so myself! In fact, I can usually do things I've never done before, as long as the lead knows what he's doing.
On Mondays, at Sam's Burger Joint, most of that crowd and many, many others go to swing night. I only went a few times when I thought the band would be good. But when Rex went to Houston, I needed the extra distraction so I didn't miss him so much. I've gone every Monday, good band or awful. Sometimes, the awful-band-nights have actually been the better nights since the crowd is smaller so I get asked to dance more and we have more room on the floor. So my heart only aches for Rex on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights. I'd really like to fill the void on the other nights, but good bands are hard to come by (we are in Country Western Land after all). Seems the die-hard dancers commute to Austin the other nights, and that is just out of the question. (There's a relatively new West Coast Swing association here but they meet on Tuesday nights when James is at Capoeira, so that doesn't work. Very unfortunate because that's what I'd really like to learn more of.)
There are other dance opportunities here and there, but they are usually on Fridays or Saturdays, which are reserved for Rex. Even Rex (who doesn't care for my swing/jazz music) recognizes a good swing band (and they are rare), so he will occasionally go with me to see Johnny P. and the Wise Guys, or Jim Cullum's band. On those nights, I mostly just bask in his company instead of dance.
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