The Dance Lesson: Part 2 of 2

For four years, I kept my vow of never dancing again, but as I got older, the pressure to dance increased as I was invited to more and more parties.  For the sake of my social life, I gave up my vow and asked a cousin of mine for help.  With much patience, he taught me the basic steps of salsa and merengue. 

            Armed with my primitive dancing skills, I attended my friend’s 16^th birthday party.  I was in my usual spot: sitting on the edge of the sofa, moving slightly to the beat of the music. 

            I was admiring two couples dancing in front of me when a good-looking, muscular guy with short brown hair caught my eye from across the room.  He smiled and I smiled back, recognizing him.  It was Anthony, the 17-year old heart-throb I had met a few weeks ago.  He walked over with confident strides, extending his hand toward me, the universal invitation to dance.

            I took his hand and stood up, attempting to look nonchalant. We found an empty spot on the floor.  Then I looked up to meet his eyes… and instead saw the top of his head.

            My height was the bane of my existence.  Usually the tallest girl in the room, I stood out amongst my vertically-challenged friends.  I knew Anthony was shorter than me, but I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of being this close to him, and it didn’t help that I was wearing heels.

            “Whoa!” he said, his eyebrows lifting in cool surprise.  With a self-conscious smile, I backed up so that I could actually see his face.

            We began to dance: one, two, one, two, one, two.  I tried to focus on my steps.  I had never danced with a guy who wasn’t related to me.  I was suddenly hypersensitive to everything – the feel of his hand on my waist, how large and hard his shoulder was underneath my own hand, how our feet were moving in unison.

             “Relax,” he said in Spanish.  “You’re stiff.”  He massaged my waist a little with his fingers, not realizing that his touch would have the opposite effect on me.  I tried to do as he said and breathed deeply, inhaling the enticing scent of his cologne.

            When the song ended, he lowered his arm but didn’t let go of my hand.  He seemed to be waiting for the next song to start.  It wasn’t long before the music started up again, but I savored every second that his fingers were gently holding mine.  He turned his dark chocolate eyes toward me.  “Do you want to keep dancing?” he asked.

            I nodded, and for the next two hours, he was my dance partner.  I tried hard to loosen up as he taught me the steps.  I tried hard not to look like a fool.

             Before I knew it, it was 11:30pm, and my parents were outside waiting to pick me up.    A bunch of people had just arrived and the party seemed to be getting started.  It didn’t matter that my friend's parents were present as chaperones.  I was fifteen and had to be home at a decent hour.   

            With a wistful smile, I said goodbye to Anthony, kissing him on the cheek.  I rushed to get my coat, trying to be discreet about the fact that I was leaving early.  As I walked out the door, I glanced over my shoulder and saw him with a couple of giggling girls.  I felt a stab of envy as I hurried to my parent’s car and the noise of the party faded behind me.         

            It took many more parties until I was finally able to relax and enjoy the music completely.  My dancing skills developed slowly over the years.  Each dance experience contributed to my growing confidence, melting my insecurities away, and I seized every opportunity I could to practice.  To Anthony, it was just another dance that he most likely doesn’t even remember, but that night signified the end of my greatest fear and the beginning of a life-long passion. 

             

The Dance Contest, Part I of 2

            No one would ever guess that I’m a maniac on the dance floor.  When the music starts, my body can’t seem to control itself, and my eyes search frantically for a potential dance partner.  Once located, I creep casually up to my prey and ask him to dance.  Most men are flattered by my boldness, while most women are horrified.  But I wasn’t always so bold.

            From the time I was a young girl, I wanted to learn how to dance.  I would constantly bug my older brother to teach me how to dance to the House music he blasted on the stereo in his room.  He would try every once in a while, but would give up after a few minutes. I was hopeless.

            One afternoon, I attended my best friend’s 11^th birthday party.  She and I had become friends in Kindergarten, but after that I was put in a Gifted and Talented class.  Because of this, I didn’t know any of the girls at her birthday party.  It didn’t seem to matter, though, because we were having a nice time, shrieking and giggling loudly as preteen girls tend to do.  Until someone suggested we have a dance contest.

            “Yeah! Let’s do it! A dance contest!” the girls shouted excitedly, clapping their hands and jumping about.  I tried to join in the excitement, but was become increasingly nervous as the girls put on MTV and positioned themselves in various lounging poses on the surrounding sofas: some leaning against the wall standing on the seat cushions, others lying upside down with their feet in the air.  I sat down on the edge of one of the sofas, trying to hide my anxiety.

            The birthday girl went first, expertly moving her body in the same way as the girl in the music video.  We all cheered and clapped for her.  When the song was over, she sat down and the next girl shouted “My turn!” and stood up.

            I suddenly missed my own group of friends.  We would probably have started pointing fingers at each other saying “No, you go! No, you! No, I’m going last!” which would eventually lead to the dance contest never happening at all.  But not this group of girls.  They knew how to dance and were proud of it. 

            The rest of the girls did pretty much the same moves as the birthday girl had done.  Finally, it was my turn.  I was the last one to go.  By this time, the T.V. had been turned off and a cassette was playing the music.

            The girls started cheering me on before I even stood up.  “Come on!” You can do it!” My best friend gave me a little shove.

            “Well, okay, but I don’t really know how,” was my disclaimer.  I stood up and they pressed the Play button on the stereo.  I tried not to look at them as I began moving my body awkwardly.  Mostly, I stared at the floor. 

            “Yeah!” the girls shouted.  “Move it!”

            I moved my arms around, trying to keep up with the beat as the stereo blasted “I Like Big Butts and I Cannot Lie!”

            The girls cheered for me. “Whoooo! You go girl!”

            I started feeling a little more confident, and I began moving my feet the way I’d watched my brother do it so many times.  The girls started chanting, “Go Cindy! Go Cindy! Go! Go! Go Cindy!” 

            I looked up and saw that they were smiling widely at me and dancing along on the sofas.  I was ecstatic.  They actually liked my dancing!  By the end of the song, I felt pretty good about myself.

            The next day I was on the phone with my best friend, discussing the party. “I really liked the dance contest,” I said. “Your friends are good dancers. And so are you.”

            “Yeah,” she said matter-of-factly.  “We practice all the time.  You just have to pay attention to the music videos.”

            “I guess so.  I’m glad they liked my dancing though.”

            “Oh...yeah,” my friend said distantly.

            “What?” I asked, slightly alarmed.

            “Oh no, it’s nothing.”

            “Come on. Tell me.”

            “Well,” she began, hesitating. “You know how my friends were cheering for you?  Well… they weren’t really cheering.  They were laughing at you.  They were making fun of you.”

            “Oh.” I felt my face turn red.

            “I told them to stop, and that I wouldn’t be friends with them anymore if they did it again,” she added quickly.

            “Oh…well…who cares? I don’t care.”

            “Good,” she said. “They’re stupid anyway.”

            “Yeah, they’re stupid,” I said.  But I couldn’t help feeling like I had been the stupid one all along.  I ended the conversation quickly, then hung up and cried in shame.
            At that moment, I vowed never to dance in public again.

Until next time...

I can't stand the sight of you.  Your very presence annoys me.  I'm sorry, but I just don't want another reminder of how careless I've become.  And I don't want, can't take, one more thing to worry about. 
So off you go, fingernails.  See you in a few weeks.  Maybe by then I'll have the time and the money to treat you the way you deserve. (CLIP CLIP!)

The Confrontation

As soon as she walked through the front door, I told her.

“You bought what?” My mother’s eyes bulged wildly. “Where is it?”

“In the kitchen,” I responded.  She rushed past me to see if this abomination was really true.

“Ay!” I heard her exclaim a few seconds later, a sound mixed with both disbelief at what I’d done, and surrender at what stood before her.

Who could resist my new puggle puppy’s soulful gaze and sweet demeanor?  His soft fawn fur, which wrinkled at the top of his little head? His tiny floppy ears?

My dad, apparently, could.

That night, he sat in his usual chair at the head of our 6-seater dinner table, his eyes giving me a deadly stare over the top of his intertwined fingers.  My mother was in the kitchen, taking her time preparing his food, wisely staying out of it.

            “Why did you buy a dog, Cindy? You know that I don’t like dogs,” he said in his piercingly steady voice.

            I stood directly across from him at the opposite end of the table, close to the open doorway leading to the kitchen, just in case I needed a quick escape route.  The front door was about fifteen feet behind me, but it was closed and locked, not suitable for my purposes.  “I’ve always wanted a dog,” I began.  “You bought me a dog for my 15^th birthday, so why can’t I have one now?”

            “And what happened with that dog? Do you remember?  You couldn’t take care of him, and we had to give him away.”

            “You and mom took the fun out of it! You wanted me to keep him in the kitchen the whole time.  I couldn’t even play with him in my room!”  I put my hand on the chair in front of me and focused on keeping my tone and volume in check.  My father did not respond well to attitudes or yelling.  “Besides, that was 7 years ago.  I’m more responsible now.”

            He shook his head slightly, several times.  “Get that dog out of here.  I don’t want dogs in my house.”  This, I knew from years of experience, was his final answer.

            I took a deep breath, having prepared for this very moment.  “Well then, that’s fine.  I guess I’ll have to take my dog and move out.”

            My father was silent, the lights from the chandelier hanging above the table creating shadows over his tense face.  “So you’re just going to leave?  Where will you go?”

            “I don’t know.  I’ll have to look for an apartment that accepts dogs, I guess.”

            He continued to sit there, thinking.  My mother made noise with her pots and pans in the kitchen to hide her eavesdropping.  The brass clock on the wall next to me ticked away the seconds loudly.  Back in my room, a puppy whined and scratched at the closed door.          

            Finally, my father spoke.  “What I don’t like is that you’re forcing me to accept this dog.  You didn’t even ask.  You bought it while we were on vacation, and now you’re forcing me to accept this dog, or else you’ll leave the house.”

            “I’m not forcing you to do anything,” I said, stepping back and leaning my hips on the back of the dark leather loveseat behind me.  “I’m saying that since you won’t let the dog stay, and I don’t want to give him up, my only option is to move out with the dog.  I don’t want to go, but you leave me no choice.”  I kept my eyes down as I said this, watching my foot play with the edge of the area rug that divides the dining room from the living room.  I prepared myself for yet another one of his long silences.

            “Well,” my father said matter-of-factly, after about two minutes.  “I can’t stop you from leaving.” He finally lowered his hands from in front of his face, elbows still on the table, placing one arm on either side of his placemat.

            I stood there for a few more seconds, and then shrugged my shoulders slowly.  “Okay,” I said. 

            I turned in slow motion and walked out, passed my open-mouthed mother in the kitchen, and went back to the puppy waiting impatiently in my room. 

Being Latino articles

So I've branched out and am now a contributing writer for Being Latino Online Magazine.  For anyone interested, here are the links to my articles:

http://beinglatino.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/mamitis-and-marriage/#more-11638

http://beinglatino.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/latinos-sending-their-own-back-home/

More to come....!

Spare Cents

Standing tall and very still on a staircase platform underground, her sign read “SPARE CENTS. I AM NOT PERFECT.”

My hurried steps slowed down slightly as I took in her plea, written horizontally on a lined page of a spiral-bound notebook. Every day I pass countless people on the street, in the subway stations or on the subways themselves, singing their hearts out, playing an instrument, or just rattling their paper cup – all for some spare change. The less talented ones carry large wordy signs explaining their plights, much too long for rushing commuters to read through it all. Some have signs with only the words “PLEASE HELP” written on them. Usually in capital letters, their messages shout loudly at us, while the authors themselves sit or stand in silence. Still others forego the sign entirely and simply rely on their tattered clothing to speak for them. But this woman’s sign was different.

Like a subliminal message seeping into my brain, I couldn’t dismiss it like all the others. My conscience quickly caught the play on words. She wasn’t just asking me to spare some cents. She was asking me to spare some sense.

This woman could see right through me. I’ve grown numb to her sorry situation, and those of every homeless person in New York City. I have become senseless. I might as well be an inanimate object for all I’ve done to help them, which is nothing.

Most of the time, I keep my eyes averted. Looking them in the eye would acknowledge their existence. Constant reminders that life isn’t fair, their presence can sometimes exasperate me. I want to blame them for being there, when their only offense is having burst the egocentric bubble in which I live. “How could you let yourself get to this point?” I accuse them silently. And by doing this, I am able to turn my head and keep going, quickly sweeping that lingering guilt under my mental rug. But her defensiveness shocked me, and prevented me from executing my default response.

Clearly, her choice of words was no accident.

She chose not to speak in generalities. “NOBODY’S PERFECT” would have worked just fine. Instead, she made it personal, and in a trick gun maneuver, she took my pointed finger and turned it right back at me:

SPARE CENTS. I AM NOT PERFECT. (Don’t think this couldn’t happen to you. Just because you walk on by with your shiny black briefcase and your spit-polished shoes, and I’m standing here in my thread-bare cardigan and worn-out sneakers, doesn’t make you better than me. I’ve made some wrong choices, but you have, too. Bad things have happened to me, like they can happen to anyone. So don’t judge me just yet, because the only difference between you and me is that I’m here, and you’re there.)

Her original message was brief, but it was enough. With just six words, she slapped my face and turned it in the direction of my fears. I couldn’t even try to defend myself. I knew I deserved it.

The sharp sting of her words stayed with me as I continued to walk up the stairs and into the street, where I eventually encountered another homeless person. I read his sign (HELP. NEED MONEY FOR FOOD) as I walked by. “I want to believe you,” I said to myself.

A familiar voice echoed in my head. “It’s best if you don’t give them any money because most of them will just use it to buy more drugs and liquor. You won’t really be helping them.” My mother trained me from an early age not to trust these people.

“But how can you be sure?” I now asked my mother, and myself, in my head. “And isn’t it worth it, to spare some cents, just in case their story really is true?”

I think it is.

My Father

I won’t deny that I used to be daddy’s little girl. I loved to play with him, accompany him on his errands, go with him to the ice cream store for a special treat. He usually gave me what I wanted, at least until I reached my teenage years. That’s when all of his Yes’s turned to No’s.

As the head of the family, my father’s word has always been final. He manages to silence a room with his resounding “No” which seems to echo off the walls. My father seldom raises his voice, so when he does, we listen.

It took me a long time to realize that my father is the more reasonable parent. Unlike my mother, he doesn’t let his emotions get in the way of his decisions. He’s willing to hear you out, but it takes a mighty solid argument to change his mind. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been able to accomplish this feat.

Disciplined, a man of routine, he wakes up every morning at 6:30am, showers, and is out the door by 8 ‘o’ clock on the dot. He eats his lunch at exactly noon, and his dinner must be on the table by 6pm every night, with the television set to the news channel.

He lives by these self-imposed rules that are set in stone, and this method works for him, but his rigidity inhibits him in other ways. For instance, he is allowed to take up to three weeks of vacation a year. For whatever reason, he has chosen his vacation time to be either the last three weeks of July, or the first three weeks of August, or some combination of the two. If some type of long-distance event were to come up during any other time of the year, you can be sure he will not be in attendance. Planning a long weekend is not a possibility. In fact, part of the reason I didn’t have a destination wedding was because I knew he wouldn’t come if it wasn’t during one of those three weeks in the summer, and we wanted to get married in the spring.

Despite his quirks, I can never complain about him not being a constant presence in my life. I cannot say that his patience is never-ending, but I can say he is the most responsible person I’ve ever met. I was never in need of anything. There was always food on the table, always a place to call home. He fulfilled his duty as a father, his label switching from playmate to provider as I got older. Even now, our relationship consists of greetings, questions asked and answered, and occasional disclosures about my daily life. Our silences are never uncomfortable. That’s just the way it is with us.

Ever since I moved out over a year ago, his role as provider doesn’t apply anymore. Our relationship is about to change yet again.