I'd been kicking around the idea of taking a ballroom dancing class. I've always wanted to learn to dance properly. The course I was considering is being taught at a local high school. Deadline to enroll is this week. This is one of the few courses I've come across in ballroom dancing where you don't need to bring a partner, which is why I was considering it.
I mentioned to the Socialist that I was considering taking the course, and his immediate response was, "Why? I don't/won't dance." Now, I honestly don't remember if he said don't or won't, but it doesn't matter. In this case, intention is everything, and intention was perfectly clear here. I retorted that I knew that, but it shouldn't stop me from learning if I wanted to.
Now I knew he won't dance. It's been my misfortune to never be associated with a man who was willing to dance. That's why I don't dance. As I said, one of the reasons I was considering this class is because I didn't need to drag him along to it.
I feel like I should take the class without regard to future availability of lack of dance partners. But to be honest, taking that class is the moral equivalent of learning to knit mittens when you live on the equator. I think I'll look into something else instead.
We made a Trader Joe's run on Sunday to spot shop for a few items. I always linger over the cut flowers while I'm there. Flowers make me feel good. They're a sort of senseless beauty that needs no reason. There were some bunches of mixed flowers there that had sprigs of the purple larkspur I love so much. I was sorely tempted, but talked myself out of the waste of money.
I then poked through the roses, taking in the smell and looking at the colors. Deep red, pink, cream, salmon ... and then I saw them. Yellow, petals bordered in orange that tapered to scarlet just at the very edges. Fresh tight buds, with just that little bit of curling at the edges that tells you these are live roses and not those disappointing dead-heads that make beautiful buds but never develop into open flowers. I wanted them. I got them. I've a half-dozen roses on my desk now, a splash of garden in an otherwise weedy day.
My body may never learn to dance, but my soul will never stop dancing.