We Were Video Girls

Autumn has been going through an identity crisis in the past few weeks and can't decide if it wants to be Autumn or Summer. That makes deciding what to wear to dance class difficult. Additionally, plantar faciitus came to town along with Aunt Flow, so my wardrobe was a huge debacle--what pants would fit? what shirts would be warm enough but not too warm while dancing? what sneakers had the best support? Really, way too much time was needed to plan the whole outfit.

S and I stood at the front of the room as we have been doing. I wore a zippie with a long sleeved shirt under it and instead of my orange and black sneakers, I was wearing my cross training sneakers that I use to work out in. I'd been wearing them all week to work paired with jeans. No one said anything to me about wearing sneakers to work, meaning my students don't really pay attention to me as a human being--also evidence of this idea is the fact that when I say Good morning how are you? they stare, confused. Anyway, I was wearing basically what I'd worn to work.

We danced a mambo. We danced a tango. We danced all our usual dances. My foot was holding up pretty well except for during the alligator dance when we jump a lot; I felt a few aches so I backed down. Also impeding me from large jumps? My uterus and its penchant for cramping and all around dragging me down. Still, I'd rather that than a person inside of me.

All the dancing caused some heat. That happens. I shed the hoodie. S shed her hoodie. Other people shed their outer layers. All a part of the dancing.

Then, because Autumn suddenly became Summer only inside the dance room and only for some people, lady who tied her jacket around her head once put on the big fan in the front of the room. Who did it blow on? Mostly S. When she moved, who did it blow on? Mostly me.

You know those videos that have long shots of slo-mo girls rocking out and flipping their wind-blown hair to and fro and they're smiling and laughing, all glittery and fun? It was kind of like that only we were not happy and grinning with glee. It was annoying and it was cold. The only things missing were a car to dance on and fake smoke.


Man, I used to love this song.

[The other video that came to mind is not available for embedding, which is unfortunate since it shows a woman literally sitting in front of a fan. Sigh. I miss hair metal and all its unsubtle metaphors.]

S stood for it for about a minute and then turned to me and said, I'm going to the back. I said, I'm coming. She said I could stay in the front but I explained that if she moved, I had no fan buffer.

Of course, as soon as we got to the back, we were learning a new dance. I couldn't really see Jean's feet because all these people were now in front of me and a partial wall was in the way. However, I was able to catch on. The nice thing about being in the back was all the room we had. We learned Love Letter Waltz (that's kind of the name) and a waltz necessitates a lot of room. For the first waltz we ever learned, Jean kept instructing, Now MOVE! And MOVE! And so, we learned to really move, taking up as much space as possible. Now that we were in the back, we could move around as much as we wanted, which was quite nice.

Jean was very enthusiastic about this dance because it was by Elton John. And Bonnie RAITT! Her emphasis, not mine or S's.

Moving was becoming a problem, though, because I was simply running out of steam, and S recognized it. She was like, are you okay? I said, I think I'm dying. In that moment, I think I thought dying really was a strong possibility. Class was over by that point, though, so I was alive, a bit windblown, but alive.