Then – exactly 24 hours later to the minute – I received an email from
DancePartner.com. Someone had sent me a message asking if I would be interested
in practicing sometime.
I. was. shocked. Then I was ecstatic! Months
ago, Maja helped me make a list of my ideal dance partner characteristics.
While this person – Shey - didn’t have all the characteristics I listed, he had
the important ones. He was a local and newer professional in Tucson who had no
experience in standard but really wanted
to learn it. I liked his enthusiasm and thought, “This could be it!” But I
remembered I didn’t want to go back to a 40-hour job and I had already made a
plan to become a yoga teacher. I wanted to just pick something and stay with it
for once. I also wanted to only make enough to live on and be happy with that. I decided to email him and say, “Thanks, but no thanks. Dancing is
done for me.”
But then he sent me another message,
saying he really hoped we could meet up and practice sometime. His energy for
dancing standard was heartbreaking, because I no longer had what he had.
However, after thinking it over and having three people tell me I should at
least meet him, I emailed him back saying we could practice. I made sure to say
that I hadn’t practiced in months and I was planning to become a yoga
teacher…basically, “Don’t get your hopes up.” He was still interested, and we made
plans to meet up the coming Saturday.
Our practice/meeting turned out really
well. We danced a little bit and I was happy to know I could still move well across the floor – yay! As far as competing together, we both recognized
that it probably wouldn’t work, because he was a bit too short for me when I
was in heels. However, I don’t think either of us had too much interest in
competing at the moment. We watched some videos on standard and spent some time
learning and practicing the steps – lead and follow parts. We stopped after two
hours, though, and started talking dance philosophy and approach. We quickly
discovered we were on the exact same page.
Our conversation took many turns, from
body mechanics in dancing to body mechanics in weight lifting and yoga. Then it we went into our “normal” lives (where we
worked) and talked about our life goals and what we were doing in Tucson. Talking to Shey was
surprisingly easy. We achieved a familiarity with each other in a couple hours
that you normally wouldn’t see right away. I liked the way he thought about
things and he spoke with a sense of security and confidence in what he was
saying…something I have yet to master. He wants to be a dance coach and I can
see him being a good one– this generation’s Bill Irvine (a short, but great ballroom master) :).
While we agreed to meet next weekend, I
was still unsure if this was a direction in which I wanted to go. I still didn’t have a
drive like his.
He gave me a ride home and before I left the car he asked,
“What do you love?” I
paused, frustrated/tired. I've been asking myself that for the past year.
“I don’t know. I’ve said my normal
answer so many times I think it might be mechanical.”
“What do you answer normally?”
“Dancing. But I like writing - I do that every day. I have to...otherwise I can't function. I like teaching, too. And learning about the body.”
“What makes that answer mechanical?” Thinking about dancing and my on/off relationship with it, I answered,“Is it really ‘love’ if don’t do it
all the time? …What does it even mean to 'love something?'”
I was home just then, so we never
answered the question. A question for the future, I suppose, for the future.
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