I Like to Cha-Cha & I Cannot Lie
The universe whispers. The universe screams. And sometimes it donkey kicks you into the middle of a dance floor. Let’s rewind…
ORDER IN THE COURT! This mama of three is cha-cha’ing into the courtroom. TIME FOR SCHOOL! My legs are doing the quickstep as I pack three lunchboxes and nine snacks. TIME TO ANALYZE NABOKOV. I’m foxtrotting into my “Ladies of Novel Thoughts” book club meeting. HONEY, I’M HOME. I paso doble into my husband’s arms!
So that’s the movie trailer version of my story. Time for behind the scenes! As I did the hustle churning away at mindless house chores, my inner child kept pounding on my metaphorical door. OPEN UP LADY! THIS DOOR HAS BEEN CLOSED TOO LONG. Maybe it was time to answer.
Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid!
The whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me cha-cha...is that I had let my ballroom dreams shrink into oblivion. I allowed the bastions of culture stand guard at my booty shaking goals. A daughter of two Armenian immigrant parents, I was told only hussies wear glittered pantyhose and grind up and down another man’s leg in public. Let’s face it…I drank the Kool-Aid. I did my time. Now … it was MY time.
A quick click led me to an app called Thumbtack, a place where you ordinarily look for your local plumber. Except, I was looking for a sultry Latin ballroom teacher. Someone who could take me to a place where childhood bucket lists weren’t kicked into the sewage. And that’s exactly what I got…
Oh Mariia, Mariia!
A Mariia with two i’s in her name. She walked into our first lesson. My heart raced. Would she be able to teach a 36-year-old woman enough to enter an amateur ballroom competition? Would she be able to compensate for my lack of a male partner?
In her deliciously thick accent, engorged saccharine green eyes and puffy lips, Mariia greeted me. This woman was the vision of Latin ballroom extraordinaire with legs that would make Aphrodite surrender her throne and a face sculpted by Bourgeois, Donatello and Michelangelo in a heavenly rendezvous.
Going Pro … Kind of!
We registered. There was no turning back. In May of 2023 we would be competing as professional-amateur (a.k.a. “pro-am”) competitors at the 34th Emerald Ball Dancesport Championships in Los Angeles, California. The lessons quickly went from once to four times a week. We entered into three categories, three completely different dance styles that would have to be performed in consecutive 90 second blocks. The subtle yet profound transitions from the Cha Cha to the Rhumba to the Samba reminded me of the similar transitions I had been experiencing in life from lawyer, to mom, to a gazillion other things. Each one with its own tempo, hurdles, and persona.
Competition Day: Time to Shake It Gurl!
6:45am roll call. We arrived at the hotel for check-in. I felt an immediate pang of nausea, the kind you feel before a big trial or on the morning of your wedding day. It caught me off guard. I found myself trembling, having to find a bathroom to catch my breath. What was happening? Not much seemed to be at stake if I flopped.
Then the epiphany came…my inner child was nervous. She had waited 30 years for a shot. And finally, I had given her the dance shoes to put on. I even bought her the sparkly dress. I realized in that moment my internal and external worlds were aligning and my body was acclimating to this new phenomenon. I had unleashed a desire that had been convulsing inside of me like a jarred-up magic potion.
Permission to Live
The competitor numbers were pinned to our dresses and the judges took their places along the edges of the dance floor. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. And the only place you could throw up was in front of everyone. The excitement was so severe it almost knocked the wind out of me. The music began to flow and the ambiance knelt down to my soul. The rhythm that had been living in my heart forever grabbed my body and I pranced submissively to the mystery of the notes. My limbs were rotating in perfect unison to this world I had admired for years. At last, I had given my inner-child permission to live.
Have you given your inner-child permission to live? What is tugging at your heart? Please share your comments & your own unique story below…