Neither Jeff nor I consider ourselves public dancers. We’ve never been into the nightclub dancing scene. At friends’ weddings, we’d rather sit and chat with people rather than go out on the dance floor. It depends on the crowd, though.
I dance in my office in private sometimes. I know I’m not a good dancer; I’m awkward and chaotic BUT I do find it liberating to sometimes just crank up my favourite privateofficedance tunes and do my flailchaoticdance. I also love to draw people dancing; it’s one reason I was so tickled to illustrate the RUBY ROSE picture books written by Rob Sanders. The first one, RUBY ROSE, OFF TO SCHOOL SHE GOES, comes out from HarperCollins Children’s on June 21st, 2016!
Anyway, Jeff and I had a wonderful time this past weekend in Chattanooga, TN visiting friends, and during an evening stroll on the way to Clumpies Ice Cream, Jeff stopped me and pointed out the dance steps on the sidewalk and grabbed my hand.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s try it!” I was floored. Jeff, WANTING to dance? In PUBLIC?
And a little voice inside my head yelled Go for it, girl!
So there we were, me and my man, dancing the waltz on Frazier Avenue that night beneath the stars in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And I remember thinking: Life could not be finer than this.