When We're Alone, We Can Dance [2-12-17]

When We're Alone, We Can Dance

The cruise ship was crowded with people off for three days of pleasure. Ahead of me in the passageway walked a tiny woman in brown slacks, her shoulders hunched, her white hair cut in a bob.

From the ship's intercom came a familiar tune - "Begin the Beguine." And suddenly a wonderful thing happened. The woman, unaware anyone was behind her, did a quick and graceful dance step - back, shuffle, slide.

As she reached the door to the dining salon, she re-assembled her dignity and stepped soberly through.

Younger people often think folks my age are beyond romance, dancing or dreams. They see us as age has shaped us; camouflaged by wrinkles, thick waists and gray hair.

They don't see the people who live inside - we are the wise old codgers, the dignified matrons.

No one would ever know that I am still the skinny girl who grew up in a leafy suburb of Boston. Inside, I still think of myself as the youngest child in a vivacious family headed by a mother of great beauty and a father of unfailing good cheer.

And I am still the romantic teenager who longed for love, the young adult who aspired to social respectability - but whom shall I tell?

We are all like the woman in the ship's passageway, in whom the music still echoes. We are the sum of all the lives we once lived. We show the grown-up part, but inside we are still the laughing children, the shy teens, the dream-filled youths. There still exists, most real, the matrix of all we were or ever yearned to be.

In our hearts we still hear "Begin the Beguine" - and when we are alone, we dance.