Are we gonna let de-elevator bring us down, Oh, no let’s go! Let’s go crazy, Let’s go nuts!

The last time I felt that engaged with dancing was on a field trip, in a Polish youth hostel, with my new classmates (I had just that year come back from the States), when I was fourteen. That day was marked by significant bridge-building for me. It’s as if I was desperate to hang onto my fading American ways. I danced as if my life really did depend on it. It was so new to be dancing in this way in Poland, in the spring of 1967. I felt like I’d been all wound up and then someone pressed the “go” button.

So what explains last night? I am not one of those people who lives to dance, who cannot say no to an evening of movin’ to the beat. Fine, yes, my foot twitches to the sound of music, but it stops there. With few exceptions (all in the last year, actually), I don’t normally get up and dance for significant number of hours, without pause, without catching my breath.

It had to be the coming of spring. Or my thinking so much lately about Poland and that period where I was more Polish again than American (and which am I now?). It must be that the hostess created the right conditions. Yeah, that’s it! The dance space, people drifting in and out, in the way that people drift in and out of your life in general – engaged, then off at the sidelines, partnering you then letting go, standing back as you continue to do your thing.

When did I finally stop? At some point, well after midnight. I was all danced out. Like at the hostel in Poland, something inside you says – okay, that was good, now it’s time to put it aside and move on to the next day.