The Dancing Gods

Here is the essay that Did Not Get Me Into Harvard, BUT Did Show How Dancing Changed My Life.




Angelia and Chandler are sitting in a booth discussing the traditional Hebrew burial process. At the next table over, Hannah and Daniel are debating Calvinism; Laura and Sarah are listening to Beck and blowing straw wrappers at Daniel and his nephew, Ryan; Amy is ranting to Ryan about something as he creates a straw long enough to reach across the table and drink Laura’s chocolate milk while she isn’t looking; I sit eating pancakes at the end of the table and roll my eyes at the lot of them. This is my family.

I danced into this family. Anyone may come from anywhere and, if they want to dance, the arms of the entire family open wide. Even those with two left feet and no rhythm are welcome, if they are willing to learn.

At fourteen, I was infatuated with all things from the 1940s: film, music, fashion, history. While at the area’s annual Rose Sale, my mother stumbled across a flyer in the ladies’ room for Tuesday night swing dancing lessons. I went, one reluctant friend in tow. I was determined to learn to dance like the glamorous women in the movies I had seen. I failed; the lack of coordination that plagued me on a daily basis caused me to trip over my own foot and fall flat on the floor. The next week I came back for more humiliation.

Two years passed. On intermittent breaks from school and summer vacations, I went out on those Tuesday nights in an attempt to relearn what I had already forgotten about dance. I made only one friend. As a shy teenager, afraid of being rejected by the more advanced swing dancers, the “Dancing Gods,” I hid in a corner with some school friends.

One Tuesday, early in my third year of humiliation, those friends decided not to go. I went anyway, to see my one friend. He promptly came to my corner and ordered that I move.

“I don’t want to come over here and check up on you all night,” he said; and so I was relocated to the stairs by the stage where several of the better dancers would rest between dances. My one friend then left me. For the first time, I was alone with the Dancing Gods. I could hardly remember my footwork from week to week. How would I ever befriend these people who were infinitely better than I? I felt a poke on my shoulder and turned to face a smiling man of about thirty.

“Hi! I’m Daniel. Who are you?” If putting one foot in front of the other was hard, words were even worse. I managed to stutter out a brief synopsis of how I came to be sitting in front of him. He laughed and introduced me to everyone there. Without ever having to prove myself on the dance floor, I was in.

I learned to dance. The so-called Dancing Gods worked with me to overcome my clumsiness and to not trip every time I danced. Now, when someone I don’t recognize asks me to dance, I gladly accept. I just smile when they say, “I’m a bit new; not nearly as polished as you are.”

Everyone starts somewhere, even if that somewhere is on the stairs, alone with the Dancing Gods.