danceislove

I exit my apartment, keys and metro ticket in hand, wearing a strapless black shift, no bra.  I have, however, remembered to put on fancy underwear and the blown-out flower-embroidered Sketchers that I have worn practically every day since I bought them in April 2008.

Deep grooves puddle the dirty, dark wood stairs.  I like the lack of elevator.  Extra calorie burn for me, especially when hauling bags of groceries from the Maxi Dia two doors down, like I did earlier today.

“Your friend went back to America?” my roommate Claudia asked me, as I turned from putting two bags of veggies in the freezer.

“Lyndsay?  Oh, no.  She lives in Spain.”

“Ah!  Oh, she does!  Really!  But you know her from the States.  From Boston.”

“Yes,” I confirmed.  “That must have been confusing since we are both American, and she was visiting me!”  I make sure to give Claudia a wide smile before I put my jar of tomato sauce and extra carton of soymilk on the bottom of the wooden shelves standing next to the refrigerator.

“Is she in Spain permanently?”

“I don’t know.  You could ask her.”  I take a deep, deep breath and smile.  “I mean, she is online sometimes, so you could ask her if you wanted to know.  Now she’s on a lavender farm.  She’s going to different farms to learn about organic farming.”

“Are you going to visit her too?”

“Maybe. There’s a lot I have to do in Madrid.”  Again I look at Claudia and smile.  Questions like these cause me great and unreasonable distress.  Others’ search for linearity, reciprocity, and definitiveness concerning my life, and concerning the lives of my friends, incites within me a level of exasperation that renders me nearly helpless.  I know that people ask these questions because they are genuinely interested in my life.  Unfortunately, this does nothing to mitigate the distress, even though I want nothing more than for people to be interested in my life.  The only way in which I have managed to grow in dealing with this experience is to smile as if my life depended on it, to explain things patiently, and to acknowledge that appearances to the contrary, situations can be confusing.

My least favorite question is why I chose to live in Madrid.  Actually, I’ll answer it now but it would not make sense to most people.  I live in Madrid because of an amazing woman that I met two weeks after my arrival, and because of a dance partner that I didn’t dance with until about the same time.

At a party celebrating the conclusion of the English teaching course I took in June, one of my colleagues asked, “Hey Liz, how come you didn’t move to Paris?  I’m sure the lindy hop is much better there.”

I stood up suddenly.  “Oh,” I stammered, “oh my gosh - am I in the wrong place?  Excuse me, I think I’m supposed to be in Paris!”  I grabbed my purse and turned and started to walk out the door.  Everyone laughed, loudly and appreciatively.  I was happy with that response.  I need to come up with more of those.

Claudia, the roommate who was asking me questions in the kitchen, is someone I am particularly grateful to have met.  Despite her youth, she gets more done than most people I know, studying hard for a double-master’s in international management and finance.  I live with her and with two other equally glorious gals because I blindly answered an online ad.  Claudia, who was raised in Bordeaux, is tri-lingual and goes running with me most mornings at 6AM.  What are the chances I would have found her if I’d tried?

“You should ask her about wines,” said my friend Morgan the other night.

“I don’t want to ask her about wines,” I answered, “because everyone asks her about wines once they find out she’s from Bordeaux.  Anyway, she already told me once while we were running that she doesn’t like wine.”

“Ah.  Then don’t ask her about wines,” Morgan said, his voice full of warmth.

I like Morgan a lot, because he has fascinating things to say about physics and calculus and dancing and novels.  And he listens.

“Don’t worry about the how,” I told Lyndsay as we sat in the bus station lunch counter yesterday, eating horrible mayonnaise and vegetable sandwiches and patatas bravas that nevertheless tasted good to us because because we were eating for the first time since our fruit and bread the evening before.  “Just put out to the universe what you truly want.  If you wonder about the how too much, you might compromise.”

Lyndsay and I spent hours and hours talking during her visit.  We walked all over the La Latina district, giggled over cute boys, pored over books in English bookstores, bought each other fruit and metro passes, drank wine at outdoor tables.  I never once asked her how long she plans to stay in Spain, although we discussed different ideas she had on that topic.  I like it when people discuss with me the things that are foremost in their minds and hearts.  Then I have the opportunity to understand them in their complexities, as opposed to their reducibles.  I like it when people do the same for me.

Some people think that “putting something out to the universe” is a cop-out for not making things happen.  I left a whole life in the States to follow my heart.  In a way it was the path of least resistance because it was the thing I most wanted to do.  A lot of people say I am brave, but it doesn’t feel like bravery.  Once I have an idea of what I want to do, I can’t rest until I make it happen. And then usually I can’t rest after that, either.  The result may not be what I expected and things may not be easy per se, but I don’t want easy.  I want to move forward.  Just like in air steps.  Let go.  Look up.

Speaking of which, I have a dance partner.  His name is Raul.  Among other things, he is the best spotter I have ever worked with.  Somehow, when another one of the boys is throwing me, practicing a step, Raul can get right in there with his hands around my waist without interfering with the momentum and without getting himself kicked in the head.  Yesterday he and I practiced the knickerbocker for the first time - that’s a backflip for the girl - and we threw it with no problem.

Tuesday night I didn’t have practice, though, which worked out fine because I could go out with Lyndsay.  Over our salad and fruit and bread, she told me about a fight she’d had with a dear old friend.  When things had reached an emotional pitch, she stepped outside, took a breath and asked her God to help her know what to do. She re-entered the room and just listened to her friend.  “She said a lot of hurtful things, but I just stayed there with her.  Then I said, ‘Okay, I listened to you; now listen to what I have to say.’  She did listen to me.  Now we’re friends again.”

Yesterday was not so easy.  I stood on the metro, traveling from English class to dance practice.  I felt tired, and, okay now, raise your hand if you’ve ever had a broken heart.  Well, I do, and sometimes it hurts so much I’m astonished.  I thought of Lyndsay and did something I never do.  I thought of praying.  However, I don’t think of myself as having a God.  So I just closed my eyes and talked to the universe at large, in my head.  I know I’m not supposed to be sad like this.  Just give me a sign to help me get through.

I started counting the things I’m grateful for.  I have a fantastic dance partner, and dance colleagues that practice four times per week and essentially do anything I want them to.  I have August ahead of me, in which I will have hardly any work but enough money, and the time to do exactly what I want to do, not beholden to anyone - school, boss, family, husband - so I will do what I have always loved: read, play, write, dance, sing, be with the wonderful people I know.

I guess the universe didn’t give me a sign, but maybe I missed it because my eyes were closed.  Fortunately the gratitude made me feel so good.

Maybe, just maybe…we would all do well to focus less on sense and order, and more on joy and gratitude, and the things we truly want more than anything.  I don’t know.  Just a thought, from the little dancer you know, tucked away in a crumbling building in Madrid, next to the tango and flamenco bar that makes great quiches.

Nevertheless, walking home from errands, I can understand why people leave Madrid for the beach in August.  The sun stings, sears, fatigues me.  Still, I hope this late-morning swing through the city burned my shoulders a bit and got rid of the white strap marks on my upper chest.

“Do you want to go down for a caña?  Oh, it’s so hot,” Willow says.

“Yes, but I can’t stay long.  I must sleep,” I reply.

“Let me just sweep this up first, because I may not do it later.”

________________________________________
“The universe rewards people who follow their dreams,” Willow says, smiling at me.  “A few years ago, here in Madrid, I was working this horrible job.”  I know she is shifting into story mode, and I anticipate delight.  “I worked from seven in the morning till 10 at night, with a few hours off for lunch.  I was commuting 25 hours a week.  The pay was horrible.  I didn’t have time to look for a new job, because I was exhausted, and I was always working.  But I went in to see my boss and I gave notice.  I gave a very respectful three weeks’ notice.  She insisted on three months, but I’m really glad I didn’t do that because then it would have been Easter, and no work.  She really tried to manipulate me.  I wouldn’t let her.  She was a smart woman, and could make people do what they didn’t want to do, but I wouldn’t let her get to me.  I quit, and a few days later the jobs just started coming, and I was making more money than before, working far fewer hours, a much better situation.”

“Can I have a sip of your wine?” I ask.  I have only ordered sparkling water, because I am so sleepy as it is.

“Of course,” she says.

It tastes dark like chocolate, and crimson like roses.  “Is this their regular house wine?” I ask.

“It’s this one.” She points to the listing on a the bi-folded plastic-encased drink menu.  Ribera.  2.50 euros.  “I don’t actually like it very much,” she adds.

It is after 10 on a Wednesday night, so the bar begins to fill up.  Willow and I pause in our conversation each time a striking young woman in a colorful caftan walks by.

“Did you see the shoes?” she asks me.

“Yeah.  Silver.  I like them.  They’re like wedge shoes without the middle part of the wedge.  Do you want the last sip of wine?”

I accept gratefully.  Soon we are out on the cobblestones again, hugging.  “I love you muchly,” Willow says sweetly.  “I don’t know you well yet, but I will, and I will still love you muchly.”

“And it is still so wonderful that you are in the world,” I smile, as we disengage.

“Where do you live?”  She asks.

“Right there.”  I point, about 10 meters away, to the very next door toward Calle Toledo.

“So close!” she says happily.

We bid our final goodbye until Friday.
________________________________________________________
“Sing another song in French, boys,” I sigh, leaning back on Willow’s little couch, which is strewn with sparkly cushions.  Nicolas has Willow’s standard guitar.  He and Morgan, and occasionally Jeff, begin singing another apparently funny song.  This one, according to Morgan’s translation afterwards, is about someone who stole a loaf of bread telling people that they should punish him by cutting off his limbs.

“I guess I don’t find it funny,” I shrug.  “I like the song ‘Chain Gang’ better.”

“The Pretenders?” asks Willow.

“No, I’m thinking of an old black song,” I say, and begin to sing it.  Everyone watches me and listens.  Usually in America we don’t do this.  We are too busy apologizing for not being able to sing, or if someone else starts to sing then we ask her if she can sing something we know instead.  “Nina Simone does this great version,” I add, after the verse.

Willow has made a delicious dinner of chicken, pasta with spinach, and mushrooms in a glorious sauce.  When we sat down, Willow poured the wine into six glasses which got handed around to each of us without a question. I proposed a toast to our wonderful hostess.  Everyone agreed and then spent an unexpected length of time ensuring that each of us had clinked each other person’s glass.

“Eyes! Eyes!” Morgan cried at me.

“Huh?”

“You have to look at my eyes.”

“Oh.”  I smiled.  “Okay.”  I clinked his glass and looked at his eyes.

“Otherwise it’s very bad luck,” Willow explained.

“Seven years of-” Jeff began.

“Seven years of bad sex,” provided Nicolas.

“That explains my marriage,” I said.

I spend till 3am at Willow’s.  I sing. I listen to Morgan explain math and physics.  I go out on one of the terraces and watch the partying crowds ebb and flow down Calle Cava Baja, a little like Landsdowne Street in Boston but happier, more international, and open much much later. After Willow plays and sings “Zombie” by the Cranberries I duck back into her studio and join her in “Linger” while Nicolas plays fills on her little guitar.  Then I drink more wine while Nicolas and Willow play and sing.  I dance around her cool stone floor and glance into her beautiful round, recently-hung mirror.  I tell Nicolas the chords to “Don’t Look Back In Anger” by Oasis and we all do a rollicking version.  I watch Willow drowse on the couch next to her Spanish friend Laura.

Willow calls her neighbor to come over so there will be more Spanish-speaking people. Nevertheless she is good enough to translate for him my apparently interesting synopsis of a scene from the 1994 movie When A Man Loves a Woman.  Her neighbor, Renato, is from Portugal, tan and dark-haired with an eyebrow piercing.

Then I’m discussing physics with Morgan again: its relationship to dance partnering and Aikido, a pursuit with which he has experience.

When I decide to leave, only Laura and Jeff have gone, but I’m tired and it’s time.  Thankfully there is such a short distance to my place.

“Hola.”  Just across from Artebar stand two young Spanish men, drinking beer out on the street.

“Hola.  Lo siento, no hablo español,” I explain.  Especially not when I am this tired.

“Oh, English?” one of them says haltingly.  “Where are you from?”

“Boston.”

“What are you doing here?”

“A lot of things,” I sigh.  I’m too tired to discuss it.  I don’t want to just talk about the English teacher part.  Madrid is crawling with us.

But they are happy and drunk, and keep asking me questions.  Despite myself I am finding them charming.  “I have to go.  I have dance practice in the morning,” I say.

“Oh, flamenco!”  One of them starts clapping.  The other one takes my hand and begins leading me in some turns.  Now I’m enchanted.

“I dance something you probably don’t know,” I tell them.

“What, salsa? Merengue? Bachata? Tango?”

“Lindy hop.”

“What?”

“You know swing, rock and roll?”

They do.

“Lindy hop is more intense.  It has acrobatics.”

“Acrobatico!” the boys whoop.

“Well, it was nice to meet you.”  I hold out my hand.

“No, no, no.  You are in Spain!  Two kisses,” I am admonished.

I kiss their sweaty stubble.  “What are your names?”

“Alex.”

“Carlos.”

“Well, goodnight.”

Jamaica Plain
Last Saturday Peter and I went to Lexington High School’s swing dance fundraiser for Darfur. Their jazz bands were surprisingly good.  A small ensemble consisting of a 16-year-old pianist and collection of horn players did justice, I thought, to Basie and Ellington tunes.  I had more fun dancing with Peter than I’d had in a while.  I didn’t have to concentrate so hard the way I do with Kendall, so I relaxed, stretched, emoted, played around.  We danced to tune after tune, both hot and groovy, before the admiring eyes of rich white parents.

Tonight, when practice in Jamaica Plain started to go rocky, I had the idea of pretending I was dancing at the fundraiser with Peter.  Kendall threw me in a pancake, rabbit toss, and lamppost, all of which went great in the last run-through of our piece.  The Belinda move is still rough.  Kendall started pep-talking me into letting my arm stretch, waiting for his lead.

“I know.  I know.  It’s all mindset.  I’m working on it,” I promised.  I didn’t tell him about using the visualization of the fun I’d had at the Darfur fundraiser.

I wonder what goes through Kendall’s mind as he’s throwing me.  I almost asked him but was trying not to be a chatty girl as we stretched on the marley in Studio 2.  It might not be words, anyway.  Although therapists would call my latest mindset tool a felt-sense - imagining myself in a situation, harvesting the emotions and sensations therein - my mantras tend to be words.  I like using words and numbers in dance:  they are two-dimensional so I can look at them, slow them down, assign a moment to each.  Many people, Kendall included, use sounds (although he is often better than me at tracking the numbers).  Students tend to prefer the “ba da dee ka-da” I’ve learned to vocalize instead of “one two three-and-four.”  Sounds are ephemeral.  They dissolve, like the dance movement itself, leaving strong impressions and feelings but no map to go back and do it again.

Kendall drove me most of the way home.  I stayed silent so he could listen to sports radio.  Then he said, “We’re pretty close.”  He meant to his place.  I had consented to ask Peter to get me from there, about a mile and a half away from our condo.

When I called, though, Peter didn’t pick up. “He must be asleep.  I’ll make my way home.”

Kendall stopped at the light after the BU bridge and looked at me.  “You don’t mind?”

“I absolutely don’t mind.  You were nice to come to JP.”

“It’s about the same for me.”  He meant that it took the same amount of time to drive to Wave Health and Fitness at the Seaport Hotel, our other usual practice spot.

“It’s nice of you to spend this many hours practicing with me.”

He did the whispery chuckle.  “I think I get something out of it too.”

We got out at his house.  He handed me a couple of ones.  “Did I drop that on the ground?” I said.

“It’s for the cab.”

We shouldered our respective backpacks and gave each other a patty hug.  “Good practice,” I said.

I walked up River St. toward Central Square.  Two ponytailed ladies sped past me on the sidewalk.  I supposed that a buddy system at 10:40 at night made sense.  My body felt good.  Only the tops of my toes hurt a bit from the pancake’s layout exit.

Up next: True love at the Boston’s three-day lindy hop and blues dance festival.

On the Red Line
In the studio mirror at home, I see lines of muscle beneath the skin of my midriff as I practice Pilates in a sports bra and yoga pants.  Later, waiting for the red line at South Station after a long cardio and strength session, I run my fingertips over taut spaces of belly just above my hipbones, below which my boutique size-2 jeans sag dangerously.  Naked, I weigh one-oh-five-point-five.

I fantasize having a website called brainsandbrawnswing.com, the home page picture of Kendall lifting me in a beer-ad pose, over his head.  I dream of slammed weekly classes and the gigs coming effortlessly.

And yet, if Newton, Watertown, Payne and Chester stay rip-roaring mad at me, that might hurt Kendall’s chances of teaching at one of the big camps.  I have to make the decision to stop worrying.  I think Kendall will tell me if he wants to go teach with, say, Deanna, because the liability of his association with me has gotten too great.

The doors finally close on the train.  This car contains field-tripping kids, talking, shouting, and somewhere harboring turkey sandwiches.  I can smell them.

The woman directly across from me is wearing the cutest boots I’ve ever seen, fitting her feet like burgundy leather gloves, bow detail across the base of the toes topped by red, white, and yellow rhinestone butterflies.

What the fuck.  I fucking made these people.  I asked Jennifer to teach with me in the summer of 1998, and they all came.  Hundreds of people, including Payne, Chester, and Strommeyer; Babs, and later, Christopher, and everyone else that now teaches for the Watertown studio.  To this day I run into people on the street who claim to have taken lindy hop class from me and Jennifer at the YWCA in Cambridge in 1998, 1999 or 2000.

Jennifer and I sent our hundreds of students to social dances run by the Newton studio, to Swing Extravaganza, to all events run by established swing dance promoters.  Attendance at these places swelled.

I started all of this.

I can start it again.

The Jamaica Plain studio will let me have space for only $15 per hour, since I already work there.  If Kendall and I teach for an hour and run practice for two hours, the overhead is still only $45.  There’s a cafe downstairs.  Someone can ferry food for tips, or people can take turns.  I’ll make simple fliers, spending no more than $100 per month on copies.  That totals $70 per night, plus $200 to pay myself and Kendall for our hour-long class.  All we need is 27 people at $10 per person for class and practice.

I’ll spring for a sandwich board, too, outside the building that houses the school.  SWING DANCE MADE EASY.  jpswings.com

This morning, Peter woke me up at 5am, left at six, kissed me and asked me what time I wanted to wake up.  I said seven.  I forgot why, but I knew there was something early.  In those two hours I tossed and turned, slept some and dreamed a little, and thought, mine. More mine than Deanna’s, whose call Kendall returned on the drive back from Providence last night.  I’d kept silent and rested my head back after he’d removed the phone from his ear.  I knew he would tell me about their conversation.  What else was he going to do?  I was all he had for the next 40 minutes.

Last night Christopher, Babs, Kendall and I went to Providence, to make practice more convenient for Jacques and Teresa, for once.  As we prepared to run through the section Babs had choreographed, Kendall said to me, “Breathe.”  I tried to obey, tried to do as much right as I could.  I wasn’t great.  He high-fived me at the end, saying, “That was good for a first run-through.  You were like this, though.”  He wrapped his fingers around my hand and squeezed while reaching forward with his other hand to grip my shoulder, indicating the extreme level of tension I had conveyed to him.

I hung my head. “Oh.”  I started walking toward my bottle of water.

He followed me.  He squeezed the place between my neck and shoulder, as if massaging me. “That’s why I told you to breathe.”

I shrilled, “I’m sorry.  I want to dance it better.  I’m just not there yet.”

“That’s OK,” he answered, indignant and soothing at once.  “We’ll just do it again.”

Do it again, do it again, with the help of coffee, cough medicine, and music.  Push off. Relax. Give more. Trust. Go where he puts you.  Do all you can.

When I got married, a friend gave me a framed poem that exhorted the reader to surrender to love.  It concluded, “Fall in love, and it will decide everything.”

I never thought it would be like this.

I found myself thinking of Jesus as Kendall flipped my legs up into the air for the Belinda move.  There is just not much I can do to make it work.

What we call the “Belinda” is a trick we picked up from a YouTube clip of her dancing with one of her partners in an award-winning competition piece.  The move is similar to the one Jacques and Teresa taught us: the guy scoops the gal’s right hip up with his left and turns her body 180 degrees in the air.  In the “Belinda”, instead of ending with drags, I want to end up with my knees completely folded under me and my feet crossed on the floor as Kendall spins me with his arm.

I have to focus on letting my body go where Kendall puts me, to be a true follow, as I heard him say to one of my students the other night.   Then, in an email conversation with me about lead/ follow he mentioned Deanna (smokin’, green-eyed, bouncy) as one of his favorite followers because she is “extremely true.”

Kendall and I had to make major changes to the choreography because my sacrum still hurts.  Sloppy landings make it really hurt and therefore we can’t finish learning the hat trick and the cootchie fly in time for our show at Springstep this Saturday.

The first time we ran our piece with the modified tricks, it sucked.  I’d been taking comfort in my reflection.  I’m so little!  You can see the ribs below my collarbone!  My arms have definition!  Surely these traits plus my swing dress will redeem the fact that we are not doing all of the tricks we wanted to do.

This won’t work.  First of all, I will not be looking at my reflection during the show, but an audience of fifty or so enthusiastic and wealthy Springstep supporters.  Second of all, if I don’t let Kendall move me, direct me, catch me, then there is no dance to speak of.  I can’t afford to feel bad about my inadequacy and comfort myself with compensatory cuteness.  I can only be inadequate and give myself to the lead/ follow, to Kendall, and he will deal with me.  I must be true, and trust him.  Because for those two minutes and forty-two seconds, he is all I have.

Mohegan Sun
Last December, someone from the Connecticut Association of Optometrists had contacted Jacques via the Providence Swings website. Apparently these eye specialists were gearing up for a centennial celebration of their organization at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut, and their party would not be complete without a swing dance spectacle.  Jacques hustled each member of J. Bucket $150 for the show, which would occur in the same weekend as the Concord performance, so we would have a piece already prepared.  In the Connecticut show, however, we were supposed to shout, “Happy 100th Anniversary, CAO!”

While Jacques and Teresa drove separately from Providence, Kendall and I made the 2-hour journey to the casino with Babs and Christopher.  This was the trip during which Kendall shouted “To the left, to the left!” as a way to help Christopher navigate from the highway.

We all thought we rocked the show, despite glaring obliviousness on the part of the optometrists.  The YouTube clip features several of them walking past the parquet without even a glance in the direction of the dancers careening and flying around in, if not perfect, admirable formation.

As we sat on the floor and stretched, around the corner from the buffet, on a plush carpet of red, purple, and yellow, someone brought up the subject of the teacher’s exchange workshop scheduled for March.  “Aren’t you guys teaching in it?” Babs asked me and Kendall.

“I can’t because I could only come on Sunday.  I already committed to teach a workshop in the city on that Saturday.  I was told they didn’t want people who could only come for one day.”

“Oh.”  Babs responded,  as she and Christopher looked at each other.
“We can only come on Sunday too, but we’re going to teach there.  And take class from the other teachers, while we’re there.”

“That makes me kind of mad,” I admitted, sitting up after having stretched forward over my legs.  I reached forward again to massage the foot that Kendall had recently untaped.

“We’re going to Floyd and Sarah’s wedding,” explained Babs.

“It’s not your fault, obviously,” I rejoined.  “I would teach on Sunday only too if possible.  I couldn’t break my previous commitment.  It’s for a really cool group in Boston for young adults that includes people both with and without disabilities.  They have live musicians working with them as well.  They hired me to do a series of improvisatory dance workshops.”

“Wow, how did they find you?” Christopher asked.

“Google.  It’s how everybody finds me.  Through Edmond’s website.  You know, he lists all of the dance studios in Boston.  I think when people google for a dance teacher, they find Edmond’s page and just call everyone on it.  Since I always call back immediately, I generally get the gig.”

“So, Kendall…” Christopher began.

Kendall was in plow pose, on his shoulder blades, looking at his knees, toes anchored to the floor behind him.  He rolled out of it and sat up.  “Yeah.”

“You’re not teaching in the teacher exchange?”

“I am.  With Deanna, from New York.”

J. Bucket celebrated the performance with dinner at a seafood place in the casino.  Kendall periodically left the table to take calls from Jane, girlfriend #3, with whom he was trying to reconcile after sending the inappropriate email her boss had seen.

I remember being so tired on the way back, sitting in the back of Christopher’s car, watching the video of the show “like seven times,” as Kendall laughed in his whispery way when handing the camera back to Babs.  He and I high-fived almost each time we looked at our large lamppost.

Up next: Lynn attempts to circumvent the Boston establishment

Philosophy
Kendall’s and my practice repeatedly ran up against what I perceived as a fundamental difference in how each of us viewed leading and following.  I believed that his lead was too demanding and did not leave openings for his partner to contribute.  He believed that a truly accomplished follower should track precisely and add her own ideas simultaneously.

Appearances to the contrary, the actions of leading and following do not refer simply to dictation of the dance by one person and compliance on the part of the other.  A good leader generates power and direction.  He may provide acceleration or deceleration while suggesting trajectory.  A good follower stays true to these parameters, which may shift unpredictably.  For example, if the leader suggests a turn and as he releases her, the follower should do the turn at the speed she was given, while keeping her arms available so that her partner can catch her and infuse a direction change, a different trajectory, or a difference in speed. Throughout the dance, a good follower extends the momentum as if untouched by friction, returning all of it back to her partner in a continuous stream of motion.  She must not anticipate a direction or trajectory, since this would cause a glitch in the momentum transfer.

When laypeople watch practiced dancers lead and follow, they usually think that the moves have been previously rehearsed in a specific sequence.  Several times in my life I have been surprised when, after lindy-hopping with a near stranger in a bar somewhere not in my hometown, I would hear, “How long have you two been dancing together?”

People who do not regularly partner dance perceive the lead-follow dynamic as flow. This word is used consistently.  “You just flow so well together,” folks say about even the most ordinary of social dances.  Moreover, fancy tricks and footwork are nothing unless undergirded by solid partnering.  After watching a dance, many people talk excitedly about the flips or the kicks they saw, but they would never have noticed these moves without the snap, crackle and shapeshifting energy of lead/ follow.

Boston
The other day, I fell.

I’d been sick with a stomach bug that had begun, rather inconveniently, on the morning of Marathon Monday, rendering me unable to go and cheer for Peter.  The worst of the illness had left me by Tuesday, but I was still not able to eat much.

Nevertheless, on Thursday evening I agreed to work on a five different air steps.  Two of my students had accompanied me and Kendall to the Seaport to practice, because they wanted help with the Frankie flip.

All night, my posture sagged backward, so it’s no surprise that after Kendall popped me over his head for the cootchie fly, I slipped from my heels.  My sacrum smacked the floor, followed by the back of my head.

I don’t remember any emotions as I flipped onto my belly, gasping uncontrollably.  Someone was rubbing my back, probably Kendall.  Apologies burst forth repeatedly from the health club guy we’d gotten to spot me.

As soon as my breath returned I felt intense embarrassment.  With an ice pack for a pillow, I lay on the floor and told jokes with my students.  Kendall made sure I was OK, and then made for Boston Brewing Company to meet Ron and the gang.

I blamed only myself for the fall but felt so sad when Kendall left, something like, why won’t you just love me?

Up next: As Lynn focuses on following, her training truly begins.

Somerville
It’s afternoon.  My phone goes off.

“Evelyn.  You’ve gotta start thinking of someone other than yourself.  I see what you’re doing and it’s fucking pissing me off.”

Despite the lack of “hello” I know who is calling. I’m startled but not altogether surprised.

“First you run Blues Cafe on the same night as Swing Extravaganza, and you take all of the good dancers away from that event, which has been going on for years.  Now you’re going to run classes in Watertown, right near my studio.  I know you’re trying to take away our students.”

“Payne, calm down.  Listen to me a minute.”

“No, you listen.  You keep trying to tear this community apart and I’m sick of it.  If someone’s already doing something on a specific night, you stay out of it.  I even heard from the Harvard Ballroom Club guy that you were thinking of running an event in the same place where we have the Monday night dance.  This is ridiculous.  Everybody knows you’re just out for yourself, trying to make as much money as you can.  You’re stomping all over everyone in the process.  I know that this is how you make your living but how is this fair to the rest of us?  I can’t believe you’re being such a bitch.”

“Payne!  I decided not to run Watertown Swingset.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really.  Everyone got so mad at me about it.  Case in point.  I never wanted to make anyone mad.  I wanted to run classes on Thursdays.  Your classes are in Wednesdays.”

“But in Watertown!”

“Okay, well, never mind.  I didn’t specifically choose Watertown.  That happens to be the location of a beautiful new Moroccan cultural center.  My former boss is the chairperson there, and she thought it would be a great idea for me to hold dance classes.  She has gotten performance gigs for me and Kendall, and she’s a good friend of mine.  Anyway.  It doesn’t matter because everyone has jumped down my throat, including Chester and the Newton studio people and now you.”

“What happened with Chester?”

“Oh yeah, you weren’t there last Monday.  He sat me down and tried to explain to me why holding dance classes on someone else’s - on your - turf in Watertown was apparently unacceptable.  I kind of lost it.  I cried. You probably don’t care, but I have a chance now to do what I’ve always wanted to do.  I have a really good partner, and I had an opportunity to hold great classes in a great location.  I want to inspire people to get better.  Grow the scene.  Everyone always seems to believe that there are a finite number of students in the scene -

Payne broke in. “Lynn, you always conflict with everyone.  See, you’re just thinking of yourself.”

“Okay, fine, maybe I am.”

“I don’t want you ever doing anything in Harvard Square.”

“Yeah, that’s what Chester told me.  He said, ‘Stay out of Harvard Square.’  I was only doing some research.  The space you have on Monday is beautiful.  Since the Harvard Ballroom guy uses it on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he is moving to New York, I thought I’d ask him about it.  The timing and pricing don’t work for me and Kendall anyway.”

“Thank God you are not going to be in Watertown, either.”

“I’ve been doing some work in Jamaica Plain and might start up something there.”

“Yeah, but will you get any students to come all the way out to Jamaica Plain?”

“Well, apparently I am not allowed to try in Watertown or Cambridge, so, what are my options?”

I moved to the Boston area in 1997 in order to attend a master’s program in Dance Movement Therapy.  During the transition, I thought, and wrote, that I wanted to be king.  Not queen, king, and of what, I never specified.  The gender assignation felt important.  It seemed that women had more struggles.  The central one in my mind when I thought about being king was the enormous amount of energy required to keep from eating too much.  Men didn’t seem to worry about eating and weight with the same intensity as women.  I had seen a couple of therapists about this issue without much progress.  It seemed appropriate to quit being a woman and start being king.

I got my wish.  My master’s degree took three years to finish because I became busy selling and teaching the lindy hop classes I taught with Jennifer, as the guy, so to speak.

From the beginning of my involvement in the lindy hop scene in Boston, I began making enemies.  I was barely 25 and not aware of the utility of understanding the local lindy milieu before charging in with classes and events. Most of the established studios resented me from the start, because I held classes without checking to see whether they might be running classes at the same days and times.  I tossed my fliers on the crowded flier tables at dances, neglecting to ask the dance event producer for permission first.

A teacher from one of the studios admired my gumption, and I think of her with fondness to this day.  She is a lawyer and has since quit teaching.

Another lindy hop heavy-hitter attempted to curb my rabid energy by sitting me down in the Porter Square Dunkin Donuts one afternoon and patiently explaining the preferences and personalities of each dance studio.  This guy was not a lindy hop teacher or event promoter, but a regular software-industry geek with his own website.  In 1997.  Dedicated to swing dancing in Boston.  If you are old enough to remember life in 1997, you’ll recall that it was unusual for regular people with full time jobs to have personal websites aiming to improve life for their community.  Edmond Li was not, and is not, a usual type of guy.

I didn’t really listen to Edmond, yet he included my name and phone number on the dance teacher contact page on his website.  He placed my events in his online calendar.  The following year, Edmond listed my website, which Josh had insisted on making for me. (At the time, Josh was my most dedicated student and one of two notorious playboys in the lindy hop scene, because Hannah was not destined to land in Boston till 1999.)

A perennial feature of Edmond’s website is his “soapbox,” in which he writes an editorial concerning his observations around the scene.  In the spring of 2007, he chose to focus on the inappropriateness of air steps at social dances.  He described the workshop Kendall and I had taught at Chuck’s dance, highlighting the moment when one of the students fell.  Without mentioning any of our names, he scolded Chuck and Kendall and me for behaving so irresponsibly.  What if someone sued the dance promoter, or worse, the venue?  What if this touched off more litigation and less non-profit-supported dancing in our community?

Edmond continued to list Chuck’s dance on his long-famous online calendar, the go-to information source for lindy hoppers within a hundred miles of Boston.  However, he cautioned beneath the listing, in red:  Caveat emptor.  As of 3/5/07, air steps were allowed on the social floor at this dance.

Emails among the dance promoters flew.  The Newton studio teachers, as well as Chester, wrote pages about the dangers of condoning and teaching air steps.  Chuck and Edmond engaged in a lively exchange.  Chuck fairly threatened Edmond to bring it on, and he had a point, because Edmond never so much as introduced himself to Chuck.  “I can’t believe he’s even been to a dance,” Chuck guffawed, in a conversation with me.  “I don’t even know who this guy is!  What a coward.”

Chuck’s reaction - namely, no press is bad press - put me at ease.  Chuck and I had similar ambitions and energies.  We tended toward a more capitalist view of the swing dance scene:  people will vote with their feet, and may the best swing event win.  Why should we all suffer from boring events - those that outlaw airsteps, or occur under flourescent lighting with zero atmosphere - when we can throw better, more inspired parties?

In the days that I was king, teaching with Jennifer or flitting from partner to partner, I would have ceased all thought to any controversy regarding air steps or scheduling conflicts.  Kendall’s presence in my world changed things.  Despite his young age, his mind grasped the importance of diplomacy.  He aspired to teaching for some of the studios at their large dance-camps and competition weekends.  I worried that his association with controversy would hurt his chances in this area.

I did a little bit of PR.  I emailed the woman who had fallen during our air steps class and apologized profusely, although Chuck had ensured each participant signed a waiver, and despite Kendall’s clearly stated warning at the beginning of class.  I offered her and her partner a free private lindy hop lesson.

They never collected.

His question both pleased and disturbed me:  I like it when someone I know guesses at my state, but it’s Kendall, and his occasional guesses are always correct.  Am I that transparent?  That readable to him, and not to my husband, who can go on at length about topics in which I’ve already spelled out my disinterest?

Similarly, I like and then instantly hate the times Kendall says, “Are you OK?” and I’m not, or “You look frazzled,” and I am indeed.  A determined and ruthless coach such as he should not be vouchsafed with the ability to read others’ vulnerabilities.  Perhaps he enjoys pointing them out.

“I always think -” I began, crafting an appropriate self put-down for my lack of interest in puzzles.

“Here, you’ll appreciate this,” he interrupted, apparently trying to keep both his guests entertained, moving to the stereo situated beneath the huge TV screen.

“Oh good, new music.  I need inspiration,” I complained.

“Well, it’s not new,” he laughed.  “So, the reason I was late for practice today was - I came home and the dishes in the dishwasher were clean, and the sink was full of dirty dishes, AND I had to deal with the fucking moths… I thought I was only going to have to do laundry.  So I put this on…”

Bass rhythm echoed in the apartment.  Ludacris yelled, “Stand up!”

I laughed.  “Glad you like this CD,” I said.  I’d purposely left it in his car after our last trip to Providence.  I’d titled the mix “Stand Up,” because the first and last tracks were different songs with the same name.

“I listened to the whole thing.  I think I wore out Track 13.”

“Oh, ‘Irreplaceable.’”

“Is that what it’s called?  It’s not called ‘To the Left?’” he asked, referring to the song’s signature opening jingle.

On the way to the Mohegan Sun gig on January 28th, Kendall started shouting directions to Christopher as we got off the highway.  “Christopher!  To the left, to the left!”

Then Kendall and I chorused, “‘Everything you own in a box to the left!’”  We high-fived.  I felt a rush as the car jolted:  life imitates music.

It would appear that I choose to center my life on such brief intense moments, in the presence of this arrogant young man, the world at his feet.  Today I look out the train window at the Boston skyline and feathery green on distant trees, and it is already April 24th, and I remember warm walks with Peter through the Boston Common.  I reflect again that last year, I was all about Jesus, and this year I am all about Kendall, and tipping the scale from 112 to 110 to 108 to 106 (I was sick this week but don’t want to go up to more than 108).  I keep my obsessions for the sake of my art.  Is it wrong?

“Were you going to say something?”  Kendall asked, after having started to play “Stand Up” in his living room that night.

“Nah.  I don’t remember.”

I am susceptible to men who pay attention.

Boston
Last night: “You keep pulling your hips away before the end of the sailor kicks. It’s killing me.”

In sailor kicks, the guy has to spin the girl twice while holding both her hands, bring her right hip to his right hip so they are facing in opposite directions, then bend forward while hopping and kicking in a clockwise circle.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll follow.”

“And can you kick on seven instead of break? It’s bringing me down.”

“OK.” He leads the section again and I ask, “Was that better?”

“Yes.”

We videotaped most of the choreography in front of a Rochester family on the way out of the gym after their swim. Kendall messed up more than I did, so I didn’t feel too out-classed.

Annoyance flashed in his eyes as I chattered, peremptory to our first prep of the cootchie-fly. That’s the move where the gal jumps while facing the guy as he lifts her from under her straddled legs and pops her over his head.

“Josh and Hannah told me they had to do it like two hundred times,” I was saying, “and Floyd had to catch Hannah on the way down….”

“Glenn’s gonna catch you. Well, first I’ll catch you. Let’s go.”

A tense moment ensued as I wondered how this would, indeed, “go” despite my inner cringing. Then, I just threw a switch.

“OK. I’m ready.”

“So, you come in.”

Step skip plant jump - whoa! In the air. Then safely on top of his forearms, for whole seconds. Then down. He gave me an “I-told-you” look.

“That was fun,” I said. “Let’s do it again.

Two more preps, and then over Kendall’s head and straight down behind him. Glenn just held my hands. I was fine. It was awesome.

To return Glenn’s favor, at Kendall’s prompting, I asked Glenn to throw me in some lampposts. Then Kendall and I practiced the hat trick, which, thanks to Glenn’s coaching, was the best it’s been yet.

From side-by-side position, Kendall prepped and I jumped so he could pop me onto his back, my legs sticking out to the side, arms on top of his shoulders, my right wrist holding my left. Then he swung me around in front of him and let go completely. In this move I have to release as well, and fly in a tangent away from his body before I land.

Usually when we practice this, I stumble and fall, and this iteration was no exception.

“You released too early on that one,” said Kendall. This represented progress, since I succeeded in bypassing the self-preservation instinct that made me hang onto him too long.

“Oh. At what point do I release?”

“You gotta feel it, baby.”

I got more air, but stumbled again on the landing. It made my ankle start to hurt, so I watched Kendall and Glenn practice leading and following Charleston moves for a while. Then Kendall and I walked through Red Door Blues, our showcase piece, and then it was ten o’clock.

“Do you like Daughtry? This is my favorite song right now.”

I couldn’t help it. Even driving Kendall the short distance to his car, I had to play the song. I was feeling so good.

“Sounds like Creed,” he said.

“Yeah. But it rocks out. Some Creed songs build up but never rock out.”

“Here’s good,” he said.

I dropped him off at the light and watched him run across the street toward his car. Seized with inspiration, I hit the sunroof button and cranked the music, pretending he could hear it as I accelerated toward the 93 tunnel.

I try to do it right this time around
It’s not over
Cause a part of me is dead and in the ground
This love is killing me but you’re the only one -
(Daughtry)

Cambridge
“Hey Evelyn, thanks for letting me in at the Storrow Drive Exit.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

We were at his place now, in the kitchen at the center of the huge ground-floor space. I was pouring baby carrots into a cereal bowl.

“No - you let me in. I’m saying thank you.”

“Oh. Sure. I caught up to you at River St. too, but then I couldn’t find parking.”

He pointed to the container of hummus he’d gotten out of the fridge and put on the counter, then gave me a spoon. “That’s because Glenn took The Spot. Glenn, you took her spot! How could you?”

Glenn, spreading peanut butter on whole wheat toast, laughed his predictable nervous charming laugh.

I exited the kitchen area and sat down on one of the big couches with my carrots and hummus, spooning them up as Kendall hollered and roared expletives about the moths on his ceiling. I’d already told him the eggs live in grain and he should keep oatmeal in the freezer, but he remained convinced they’d hatched in his roommate’s container of whey protein.

So I watched Glenn try to solve Kendall’s Rubik’s cube “a new way,” which he began explaining to Kendall when the latter swept in with a basket of clean laundry. Kendall asked Glenn questions about it. I tried to listen.

“Does this interest you at all?” Kendall asked eventually, looking at me.