Once upon a twenties, there was a girl who loved nothing more than dancing and sweating whilst dancing and grinding and say then day that particular movement was dancing. Said girl’s only aerobic exercise for a long while, was the dancing. The pleasure she would get from the shuffle to a deep base would be evident when her hands would creep up over her shoulders. She was no ballerina. She did not have the elegance of a ballerina. Her dancing usually was reserved to prancing around her bedroom in her pants or it was directed towards a DJ booth. She had rhythm. Unsightly rhythm.
Said girl no longer dances. Not really. She has lost her rhythm. Her movement is restricted to a wobbly shuffle that she calls walking and that only occurs because she is heavily medicated. Her government has assessed her and deemed that she should only walk 200 yards at a time, thus pulsating her radiotherapy experienced hip really is out of the question. If she did not find twerking distasteful, the cement in her spine would still be a reason enough not to do it. Her arms are similarly weak and as sometimes these limbs cannot be raised above her shoulders, the distinction for her between walking and dancing, she felt, would be slight.
People adapt obviously, and our heroine has become partial to some private bed dancing, which is much cleaner than it sounds. It involves lying flat on a mattress, a bed really because she would struggle to get down on a mattress, and then wriggling her feet and hands. The activity usually takes place when the lady in question is intoxicated and attempting to recreate the euphoria of yesteryear whilst proudly listening to Katy Perry’s Fireworks. For her, this activity is still rare.
Rarer still is any form of publicly busting a move. Walking with a stick in hand is embarrassing enough for her as a 29 year old experiencing London nightlife, but dancing, her new ‘dancing’ would be impossible. Living in her brittle shell makes it difficult for her to experience London nightlife, so she would be unlikely to open herself up to the danger of being pushed and prodded on a crowded and slippery dance floor, when she is already having to manage the increased danger from the public that emerges through alcohol. There would be murder on the dance floor.
The loss was felt, until one day, after a few sherbets, in a room protected by her dear friends, she danced. For ten minutes before having to sit. She did not grind and she did not twerk, nor did she throw her hands in the air like she did not care. Importantly, she did not want to stand on the sidelines feeling self conscious and grieving. Deprived of obstacles, armed with her stick for back support, she moved from left to right to the sound of a beat. There was some backwards shuffling and even some sort of movement with other people. With stick in hand she moved from side to side. And she smiled.
Nobody bashed her and nobody drunkenly grabbed her neck and pulled it down because they were a moron, and nobody attempted to twirl her. She moved and she adapted.
It hurt her like hell the next day though, but if anybody were to ask her, she would have said that it was worth it.
