Keep on Dancing

I didn’t have a dance party on my 60th birthday.

That had been the plan. Crosbie, whose standing joke was that I was his older friend (by one month!) was all for a joint party. We knew where (Moose Hall) although we hadn’t decided between the local band that did covers of 70s and 80s songs (the music of our youth, after all!) and canned music. Crosbie could always set up a playlist that would get everyone out on the floor, whether that was his basement or my living room or back deck. We talked about food and a designated driver service.

And then my husband left and moved in with his girlfriend, and I spent the months before and after my birthday crying.

One thing about my ex— he loved to dance as much as I did. I remember a rough patch early in our 30 years together. We were out at a bar but we weren’t talking much to each other, so when the band went on break we danced to the canned music, all alone on the floor. It didn’t occur to me that anyone was watching, but when the song ended the entire room applauded. It made me feel that there was something worth working for in our relationship, if we could dance like that.

Then at 59, I thought my life was over. I was old and alone. I would never have anyone again, to dance, to love, to share my life. I’d never trust a man again— worse, I’d never trust myself after being so blind and stupid for so many years.

By the time my 60th came around I was putting on a brave face around people. My friend Alana shared her birthday party with me, as we had done many times before. My 10-year-younger birthday “twin,” Christine, invited me to her dance party. I danced and danced, but when I left the hall I sat in my car and ugly cried. My wonderful sister and brother-in-law let me stay at their cabin on my actual birthday, where I could meet family for dinner and not have to go home to my so empty house.

And gradually I realized that I didn’t need a husband to dance. A few weeks after my birthday I was in the Middle East, where Ruby taught me the merengue on a boat on the Galilee. The two of us got everyone dancing in a cave bar in Wadi Musa, near Petra, and discovered most of the night club dance floors in Amman, Jordan, a few days later.

In the spring, after selling the family home and uprooting, I was dancing in a barn in England, with friends from university at their daughter’s wedding. The next month I was getting everyone on the floor at a gathering in Germany, with dance numbers like the Macarena and the Time Warp as my karaoke choices. That led to exploring the night clubs of Marburg and dancing until almost dawn. Achim, you’d have thought we’d choreographed and practiced that last dance, even though we’d just met that day!

In Japan in June I was dancing to the music of the roadside stop coffee machine, and in August I was dancing most of the night with Russians, on a ship headed to St. Petersburg.

At the end of that year, at a ski lodge in Vermont, a man I’d just met piqued my interest with his willingness to dance in the bar while wearing ski boots. That was Scott. We’ve been together almost ever since, and when we married in Barbados two years ago, you better believe there was dancing! Of course, there is also dancing in our kitchen on a Monday night, or on a grassy slope in the dark at our after-Hash lime, where I try to add some Soca steps to my repertoire.

I discovered that I didn’t need to wait for someone else to travel with me, to dance with me. If you just start, you never know, someone else may join you.

But even if no one does, keep dancing.