Ow!
Today, for the first time in a long time, I danced.
My oldest kid, Josh, went with my dad for a belated birthday-gift-buying expedition and quality grandfather/grandson time. Me, Dallas, and the Baby stayed home. While I burned a mix CD full of old R&B and disco tracks, the kids ran around, hit each other with toys, and whined. I knew they wanted some attention from me. “Get your puzzle books or your journals and come sit on my bed!” I yelled to them. They sat on the bed, sulking only a little, while I hurried to finish up my CD. It came out of the disc drive and I held the permanent marker poised above, trying to think up a name.
I always name my CDs something — usually the first applicable thing the comes out of my head, because if I don’t write something on the CD the moment it’s made, I’m destined to misplace it among the blanks. My best mix CDs were named Gwen, Gwen 2000, Gwen 80s/90s Mix, Work Out, Angry White Boy Mix, and Rainy Optimist. Most of those are gone now. They got cracked in a CD-compartment-opening mishap last week, and I threw them out the window in sad disgust. Hence, I made a new CD today.
I ended up calling this one Ow. You know — like when a good, old, ass-shaking song comes on the radio or on VH1 Classics and you can’t help but go “Ow!” (Or, at least, that’s what happens to me.) (Okay — I’m a freak.)
I wrote “ow” on the disc, under where it said 700 MB. Somehow, it didn’t convey what I intended. So, above where it said MEMOREX, I went ahead and wrote “baby” in smaller letters, just to be sure. Then I pushed (Baby) Ow back into the CD player to get it out of the way while the Baby (my youngest son) begged to play Mah Jong online and clambered into my chair. Then I went to lie on the end of my bed, near Dallas and his paper mazes.
“Roller Coaster of Love” came on and my hips twitched a little while I talked to the kids about this and that and thought about what we needed from the grocery store.
“Nasty Girl” came on and my hips twitched a lot while I sang to the kids and thought about glamour days gone by.
“Got to Give It Up” came on. “Come on,” I said to the kids. “Let’s dance.”
When I was a child — when I was a teenager, too — I didn’t like to dance. I don’t know why. I just felt too incredibly self-conscious. My aunt said it was because of my mom. While my mom was still living with us, before she was committed, her paranoia was already taking hold and my dad’s family tells stories of her keeping us inside, keeping strangers from looking at us, and keeping us from dancing. I don’t remember that. I just remember that I didn’t like to dance.
My dad’s family, all of Mexican descent, love to dance. Or so they say. By the time I came into the world, most of them were too old and tired to carry on anymore, I guess. Their knees were weak. I remember we’d go to weddings where my dad would get a good beer buzz and then ask me to dance. I’d say okay, because Mexican rancheras weren’t so bad — you just let a guy drag you around the floor a little. My dad, though… he’d get me out on the floor and then embarass the teenaged hell out of me. One moment we’d be partner dancing for real, the way I thought was proper, and the next thing I knew, he’d be letting go of one of my hands in order to promenade, to stroll, or to freaking sashay around the hall. Oh my god, I would be so mortified. Gag me with a spoon, I would just die. Then the band would take a break and someone would put a Kool & the Gang cassette on the tape deck, and I’d run and hide before my cousins could find me and exert their peer pressure.
Somehow, though, around the age of 17, I eventually got to where I could dance to popular music with my friends. Sometimes. Maybe it was because of the ballet lessons and the little youth-group performing arts troupe I was in, where they wouldn’t let me show off my singing unless I could at least do the grapevines and the jazz hands along with everyone else. Maybe it was because rap and hip-hop were in their golden age (late ’80s) and noone’s booty could resist the beats. All I know is that I discovered something: Once I let go of my initial inhibitions, I was actually pretty good. People told me so. All I needed was a watered down rum & coke or a cute boy to impress, or De La Soul’s “Me Myself and I”, and I was bumping and grinding with the best of them. Then our troupe got a new dance teacher. The nelly old hater who envied my breasts was temporarily replaced by the fierce Puerto Rican dame who plucked me from Broadway hell and raised me to the heights of Samba, Salsa, and Afro-Caribbean Jazz Fusion. Movement of the pelvis, she taught me, loosens the chakras. My chakras flew off their handles. I was reborn into a body that showcased my self-confidence. And then I went away and got married.
Ten years later, three years ago, I left my near-solitary confinement and came back home. For a little while, I spent a lot of time dancing. It wasn’t as easy anymore, though. People talk about things being “like riding a bicycle — you never forget.” No, you don’t, but if you’re fat and out of shape, your memories eroding while your bike rusts in a locked garage, it’s not so easy to hop back on and do a mile. I would go out with my gay friends and have a drink or two, then let them drag me onto the floor. After an hour or two, I’d finally start to almost loosen up again. My favorite partner (not just then but of all time) was Peter P. Tall and handsome, whimsical yet elegant yet down and dirty, homosexual enough not to give a fuck that he was dancing with a fat girl, Peter made me dance until I laughed until I almost cried. Until the men around me called, “Yeah! Dance, girl, dance!” Until the European tourists were dancing by our sides. Until the bars closed down. Those were good times — short-lived but very necessarily cathartic.
And then I became a full time single mom and didn’t have time for such silliness anymore. Sometimes I danced with my kids, when I wasn’t busy working one of two or three jobs, or when I wasn’t killing roaches, or when I wasn’t wondering how the hell we were gonna stop being so poor. Sometimes I just had to dance with them to keep from crying in front of them, or to keep them from killing each other in our tiny, tiny apartment.
Three years later and thank God life is easier. I made the most of the eight summer weeks my kids just spent with their dad, going out for grown-up fun at every opportunity. Before meeting Tad, the only nightlife I knew was gay bars or Mexican dance halls. Tad took me to many places, including a trendy club with exciting techno or house music or whatever they’re calling what they play. The loud bass made me feel those old feelings and I wanted to dance, but when the girls in our party said, “Come on, let’s dance,” I stayed behind, back against the wall and head imperceptibly nodding like all the guys. And I discovered my newest excuse to be inhibited — the worst one of all. It’s height. I’m a heightist. I can walk, talk, or get it on with people shorter than me, but I can’t dance with them. Sorry, y’all. I just can’t do it. I’m not ready to be That Big Chick Over There Dancing By Herself, Oh Wait, No, I Guess She’s With Those Other People but at First I Could Only See Her.
Friday at work I got one of those dumb forwarded e-mails full of chicken soup for the dull. “Live each day like it’s your last.” Sure. “Sing like no one’s listening.” Okay. “Dance like no one’s watching,” it said. Man, I wish I could do that, I thought.
The good thing about dancing with my kids is that it’s just for fun. No one is watching. I can act silly and so can they. We spin, waltz, do the Robot and the Wave, fall on the floor and then crawl back up again, panting and laughing. I don’t worry about looking ungraceful and (for now, at least) they’re not embarassed to be dancing with their mom. And, eventually, our chakras warm up and the music possesses us and we just dance. We dance for real. And, let me tell you, my kids can dance. They have rhythm. They tear that shit up.
And it feels really, really good. I just stop caring. I dance past the mirror and without worrying that my hair’s flat or I look fat in these jeans. “Dance, girl, dance! Yeah!” I hear the stuffed animals say. The kids become sated and relax back into their games or their art, and I’m still dancing. I only stop dancing because it’s time to put on my makeup because a newspaper photographer will be here in fifteen minutes to take a picture to go with the interview about my upcoming book, the interview during which I neglected the kids last week and made us all frustrated and sad. But everything’s good now. We’re all good to go and the euphoria of the dancing will last for hours on end. Life is flipping good.
While I put on my makeup, I remembered my dad and how he always danced like no one was watching. He tore up the dance floor and just didn’t care. And I was thankful that I have some of that somewhere in my DNA to draw from. And I hoped that my kids would stay freer than I ever was, always.
Daddy, to you I say: “Ow!” And I think you know what I mean.
close call
The other day I was totally freaking out because I hadn’t gotten a child support check in a month and a half. Because of a bitter history and recent annoying events, my first assumption was that the person responsible for paying us child support was being a freaking deadbeat. I became so upset, I almost considered breaking my usual web-silence regarding such matters and writing a long, ranting entry about the messed-up kind of person who would let his kids go without child support in order to punish his ex-wife.
Then, yesterday, I discovered that the child support was being garnished from the paychecks as usual… it just wasn’t being sent to the right office by the new payroll person. So, as you can see, things aren’t quite as bad as I’d imagined. In fact, I should get the missing money within a week or two.
Good thing I didn’t say anything hateful on this weblog, huh?
Life is freaking sweet.
