Tag: dance

Children, Home, Things I Can

16. Things I Can Mirror: His Moves

smirkpretty

They call it a little before 8:00pm. Another snow day, even if it doesn’t snow. I pull out a foam mattress. He shoves the coffee table into the middle of the room and wedges the easy chair next to it. “Do we need music?” I ask.

“Oh, yeah.” His eyes are as bright as meteors. Motion ripples up from his bones. He slides across the bamboo floor after the dog.

Pitbull. Shakira. Usher. Something from the pop radio station preset that rides with us on every car trip. The rhythm snakes into a hula-hoop, yanking my hips into orbit. The coils I stash deep in the balls of my feet spring free.

Outside, warm rain coats sidewalks that will freeze to glass by morning.

“Mom, look at this!” He does the wave, his legs spread. Shoulders dip-dip-roll from a torso that refuses a center. “And this!” He jumps, spinning, landing with his rear end poking left-left-right tracking the beat.

Watch out, my outfit’s ridiculous
In the club lookin’ so conspicuous

My arms are the sea, my core a spout. I spin around, poke my butt out.

He crosses his arms, squints, leans, nods. Suburban OG.

How ya like me now?

I jut out my chin. Defy.

He weaves his arms around around themselves. Casts the strands.

Take that, rewind it back

I thread a cocoon with mine. Split the husks.

Palms flash. Arms sweep. Spine curls. Hip scoops.

Li’l John got the beat that make your booty go

CLAP

Motion begets motion.

Mine follows his.
His follows beat follows pulse
follows urge
follows birth.

Face opens. Eyes streak
like voice across skin.

“Like this! Do it like this!” He cries.

I do.
I do it just like this.

 

Happy Days, Living in the Moment, Music

Happy 100 Days: 2

smirkpretty

I stumble into the house, dump the groceries, take note of the dishes in the sink, and walk the dog. I tell myself, “After I fill her water bowl, I can relax.” I fill the water bowl. “As soon as I’ve put away the groceries, I can sit down.” I put away the groceries. “I’ll just start the laundry and then I’ll read the paper.” I start the laundry. “I could just do the dishes quick.”
 
Before crossing the kitchen, I turn on the radio. Bug’s favorite station is programmed: 94.7, all pop, all the time. I stop halfway to the sink. The music comes at me in a crash, sweeping me off my feet more completely than a riptide. There is no staying put on this shifting shore.I don’t even know the song even though I have heard it a dozen times. It doesn’t matter.
 
I dance.
 
The cat is yowling to go out. The dishes are waiting. The suitcases are not unpacked and there are five unanswered voice messages on the phone. Every bit of it tips off the edge of the earth and churns to the splintering deep. I ride the black and starlit crest of a wave.
 
I dance.
 
Through one song. Then another. My eyes are closed as I move there on the kitchen tile, wedged between the table and the counters. Still in my coat, I lift my arms and let the rhythm move my spine, swerve my hips, and turn me in small revolutions on this swelling stage. The undertow carries me further towards that misted moon.
 
I dance.
 
Three songs. Part of a fourth. Then, I feel sand beneath my feet. I tumble to dry land. I come back to earth. I stand there in the empty house and notice that the contents of the place have all come back to where they were before, yet they are somehow off by the slightest degree. They exist just beyond my immediate grasp. Everything has landed where it happens to be and not one bit of it needs me.
 
Forget the dishes. Forget the messages. I go upstairs and put on my comfiest sweats. The rest of the evening is for a soft couch and love songs. The rest, just for me.